Qualifying 2: Wilson second to Zonta

Zonta knocked fellow former International F3000 champion Justin Wilson off top spot with less than ten minutes remaining, and improved again before the end of the session. His time of 1m25.479s, was some 0.146s faster than the Briton, who was still suffering the after-effects of a recent illness.

"The weekend has been very good so far," said Zonta. "I was a little bit worried after practice when Narain Karthikeyan was about one second faster, but we worked hard on our qualifying set up."

Wilson's car was more balance running fresh rubber, and he was surprised at the difference in the second session.

"We made a few changes before second qualifying and went out on old tyres," he said. "The car still felt very bad and I thought we were in for another poor performance, but with new tyres on the car was so much better.

Bas Leinders will start third alongside series debutant Ricardo Sperafico, with Karthikeyan and early-session pace-setter Jaime Melo Jr filling the third row.

Franck Montagny handed the initiative in the battle for the runner-up spot to rival Leinders as he managed only eighth, ahead of Polo Villaamil, while American Paul Edwards was happy with his progress in setting up the car and qualified 13th.

The first of Sunday's two races will start at 1300 (GMT).



Ricardo Zonta (Gabord Competition), 1m25.479s
Justin Wilson (Racing Engineering), 1m25.625s
Bas Leinders (KTR), 1m25.781s
Ricardo Sperafico (Repsol Meycom), 1m25.786s
Narain Karthikeyan (RC Motorsport), 1m25.863s
Jaime Melo (Zele Motorsport), 1m25.880ss
Jean-Christophe Ravier (Epsilon by Graff), 1m25.964s
Franck Montagny (Racing Engineering), 1m25.993s
Polo Vilaamil (Campos Motorsport), 1m26.040s
Tuka Rocha (Gabord Competition), 1m26.112s