Maldonado sweeps to Monaco pole
Pastor Maldonado will start the Monaco GP2 race from pole position after dominating qualifying on Friday
Maldonado (Trident) set the pace throughout much of the session, working his time down to 1:20.820 midway through it. No one else broke into the 1:20 bracket, and his margin over second-placed Giorgio Pantano was three tenths of a second.
Pantano (Campos) produced two laps of 1:21.1s, but not even a last-ditch effort could grab the top spot. Andi Zuber will start third for iSport, improving his time late on but not his position.
Besides Maldonado, the star of the weekend so far has been Sebastien Buemi. Standing in for the injured Michael Ammermuller at ART Grand Prix, the Swiss will start fourth on his GP2 and Monaco debut.
ART teammate Lucas di Grassi starts fifth, his session marred by a collision with Mike Conway (Super Nova) at Loews hairpin. Vitaly Petrov qualified sixth in the second Campos car, then crashed out at Ste Devote almost immediately.
The session was stopped with 7:32 left on the clock when Luca Filippi's engine exploded on the exit of the tunnel, laying a treacherous slick of oil down to the new chicane. Car after car locked up and went off, fortunately without hitting anything.
Filippi will start seventh, one spot ahead of championship leader Timo Glock. Fellow Barcelona winner Bruno Senna is next up for Arden, with Conway rounding out the top 10.
Jason Tahinci (FMS) suffered the biggest crash of the session at the Swimming Pool, while also going out prematurely was Kohei Hirate (Trident), who went off at Ste Devote and stalled. He will start 25th, one place behind Tahinci.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Maldonado Trident Racing 1:20.820 17 2. Pantano Campos Grand Prix 1:21.158 + 0.338 17 3. Zuber iSport International 1:21.273 + 0.453 17 4. Buemi ART Grand Prix 1:21.387 + 0.567 17 5. Di Grassi ART Grand Prix 1:21.541 + 0.721 16 6. Petrov Campos Grand Prix 1:21.579 + 0.759 8 7. Filippi Super Nova International 1:21.659 + 0.839 11 8. Glock iSport International 1:21.684 + 0.864 17 9. Senna Arden International 1:21.827 + 1.007 18 10. Conway Super Nova International 1:21.971 + 1.151 17 11. Zaugg Arden International 1:21.986 + 1.166 18 12. Pizzonia FMS International 1:22.070 + 1.250 17 13. Lapierre DAMS 1:22.089 + 1.269 17 14. Villa Racing Engineering 1:22.290 + 1.470 15 15. Chandhok Durango 1:22.348 + 1.528 18 16. Rodriguez Minardi Piquet Sports 1:22.370 + 1.550 18 17. Soucek DPR 1:22.392 + 1.572 17 18. Nakajima DAMS 1:22.503 + 1.683 18 19. Bakkerud DPR 1:22.729 + 1.909 17 20. Garcia Durango 1:22.781 + 1.961 12 21. Jimenez Racing Engineering 1:22.866 + 2.046 17 22. Tung BCN Competicion 1:23.598 + 2.778 18 23. Yamamoto BCN Competicion 1:23.645 + 2.825 15 24. Tahinci FMS International 1:23.996 + 3.176 13 25. Hirate Trident Racing 1:24.350 + 3.530 3
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