Grosjean dominates practice

The DAMS driver was the pacesetter for most of the session, as he was one of the few drivers to get a series of clear laps in.

Grosjean was already out front by the halfway stage, and with seven minutes remaining he found another half a second to put himself 0.8 seconds clear of Racing Engineering's Dani Clos at that time.

As the session came to a close Grosjean put in another hot lap, where he was able to stretch his margin over the Spaniard to 1.1 seconds as the chequered flag fell.

Clos was followed up by the spectacular Stefano Coletti (Trident) and Luca Filippi (Super Nova), who both looked close to the edge on their best laps. Filippi's pressing eventually caught him out, as he spun at Massenet with three minutes to go, bringing his session to a premature end.

Davide Valsecchi was fifth fastest, but he was another to hit trouble. The AirAsia driver lost his rear wing when he spun on the entry to the final corner, hitting the barriers on the outside.

Jules Bianchi was next up for ART, while late improvements from Johnny Cecotto, Esteban Gutierrez and Max Chilton bumped Giedo van der Garde down to 10th.

Traffic was a problem for drivers throughout the 30-minute session, as they all constantly backed up looking for clear track.

Barcelona race winner Charles Pic was involved in the most serious moment, when Luiz Razia drove into the back of the Frenchman, who was going slowly in the swimming pool section of the lap.

The other race winner from Spain, Fabio Leimer, had several hot laps ruined. He set the fastest time through the first sector on multiple occasions, but never got a clear lap on his way to 12th place. The Swiss then spun at Mirabeau four minutes from the end.


Pos  Driver                Team                        Time      Laps
 1.  Romain Grosjean       Dams                        1:22.368   16
 2.  Dani Clos             Racing Engineering          1:23.509   12
 3.  Stefano Coletti       Trident Racing              1:23.547   16
 4.  Luca Filippi          1Super Nova Racing          1:23.643   13
 5.  Davide Valsecchi      Team AirAsia                1:23.681   16
 6.  Jules Bianchi         Lotus ART                   1:23.707   17
 7.  Johnny Cecotto        Ocean Racing Technology     1:23.804   17
 8.  Esteban Gutierrez     Lotus ART                   1:23.931   16
 9.  Max Chilton           Carlin                      1:23.985   17
10.  Giedo van der Garde   Barwa Addax Team            1:24.040   14
11.  Josef Kral            Arden International         1:24.447   16
12.  Fabio Leimer          Rapax                       1:24.491   17
13.  Sam Bird              iSport International        1:24.566   18
14.  Luiz Razia            Team AirAsia                1:24.817   18
15.  Rodolfo Gonzalez      Trident Racing              1:24.976   16
16.  Marcus Ericsson       iSport International        1:25.019   16
17.  Alvaro Parente        Racing Engineering          1:25.092   13
18.  Fairuz Fauzy          Super Nova Racing           1:25.316   17
19.  Oliver Turvey         Carlin                      1:25.500   15
20.  Charles Pic           Barwa Addax Team            1:25.782   17
21.  Julian Leal           Rapax                       1:26.141   16
22.  Michael Herck         Scuderia Coloni             1:26.924   18
23.  Jolyon Palmer         Arden International         1:26.990   11
24.  Pal Varhaug           Dams                        1:27.888   17
25.  Kevin Mirocha         Ocean Racing Technology     1:28.242   18
26.  Kevin Ceccon          Scuderia Coloni             1:29.125   16