Pantano Rues Missed Pole

The Italian, who led for the final ten minutes until losing the top spot in the dying moments but just 0.005 seconds to Arden's Nicolas Lapierre, felt that he had more to come from both himself and the car.

"For sure I'm quite happy to be on the front row, except I had yellow flags on my last two laps, which of course slowed me down," he said. "I also got weighed as well, which probably lost me another two laps."

Pantano was pulled into the weighing station during qualifying by the race stewards, who are able to call any driver in during and after qualifying to run a spot check. He was also weighed once more immediately after the session, which left the Italian baffled: "I don't know why they did it, but it's not a problem."

For tomorrow's race Pantano said he had only one goal.

"For sure I want to win ­ I want to just come through the first corner in the lead and then stay there."