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Pantano grabs pole, Valsecchi shunts

Giorgio Pantano will start from pole position in Saturday's GP2 Series feature race at Istanbul Park in Turkey, but Friday's qualifying session was marred by a huge crash for Davide Valsecchi

Right at the end of the session, Valsecchi's Durango car hit the tyrewall at the left-hander at the end of the back straight so hard that it was completely enveloped in tyres, making it hard for the rescue crews to attend to him.

The Italian was unable to climb out of the car, but was moving his hands in the cockpit. He has since been taken to the medical centre to be evaluated.

It was a sad end to a brilliant qualifying session in which Pantano was the class of the field, taking pole by just over a quarter of a second.

"My car was perfect," he said. "It's really good here and the grip from the Bridgestone tyres was so consistent. Thanks to everyone."

Andi Zuber will start second for Piquet Sports, ahead of perhaps the star of qualifying, Adam Carroll. Called up by FMS to replace Adrian Valles, Carroll got faster and faster as the session progressed, and will start third.

Fourth was Romain Grosjean of ART, ahead of Bruno Senna (iSport), who was balked by traffic on numerous occasions, and Pastor Maldonado (Piquet) - who was on a very quick lap when he got the final sector wrong.

Karun Chandhok will start seventh, ahead of Javier Villa, Valsecchi (if he's fit to race) and Vitaly Petrov (Campos), who struggled for much of the session before improving late on.



Pos Driver                Team                  Time          Gap
 1. Giorgio Pantano       Racing Engineering    1:32.659
 2. Andreas Zuber         Piquet                1:32.913   +0.254
 3. Adam Carroll          FMS                   1:33.141   +0.482
 4. Romain Grosjean       ART                   1:33.248   +0.589
 5. Bruno Senna           iSport                1:33.449   +0.790
 6. Pastor Maldonado      Piquet                1:33.451   +0.792
 7. Karun Chandhok        iSport                1:33.703   +1.044
 8. Javier Villa          Racing Engineering    1:33.813   +1.154
 9. Davide Valsecchi      Durango               1:33.841   +1.182
10. Vitaly Petrov         Campos                1:33.896   +1.237
11. Jerome D:Ambrosio     DAMS                  1:33.948   +1.289
12. Ben Hanley            Campos                1:33.957   +1.298
13. Adrian Valles         BCN                   1:34.006   +1.347
14. Andy Soucek           Super Nova            1:34.064   +1.405
15. Mike Conway           Trident               1:34.170   +1.511
16. Sebastien Buemi       Arden                 1:34.173   +1.514
17. Yelmer Buurman        Arden                 1:34.186   +1.527
18. Luca Filippi          ART                   1:34.366   +1.707
19. Ho-Pin Tung           Trident               1:34.506   +1.847
20. Diego Nunes           DPR                   1:34.617   +1.958
21. Alvaro Parente        Super Nova            1:34.620   +1.961
22. Kamui Kobayashi       DAMS                  1:34.667   +2.008
23. Alberto Valerio       Durango               1:34.678   +2.019
24. Roldan Rodriguez      FMS                   1:34.698   +2.039
25. Milos Pavlovic        BCN                   1:35.398   +2.739
26. Giacomo Ricci         DPR                   1:35.878   +3.219

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