Petrov takes pole in Portugal

The Russian reeled off a 1m30.819s effort with three minutes remaining to knock Barwa Addax team-mate Davide Valsecchi off the top spot, and then survived an unexpected scare in the final moments when Racing Engineering rookie Dani Clos matched him over the first two sectors but fell just short in the third. Clos missed out by a scant 0.04s, but a front row start is still an outstanding result from the Spaniard.

Champion Nico Hulkenberg (ART) had to settle for third alongside Clos' team-mate Lucas di Grassi, who had led the field through the middle of the session but was bogged down in traffic towards the end.

Valsecchi finished fifth, just ahead of Piquet's Roldan Rodriguez, with his team-mate Alberto Valerio and ART's Pastor Maldonado rounding out the top eight.

Fortune was less kind to Ocean Racing Technology's Alvaro Parente, who will start his home race from the back of the grid after a gearbox problem prevented him from completing a flying lap.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time        Gap
 1.  Vitaly Petrov        Addax               1m30.819s     
 2.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering  1m30.859s  + 0.040s
 3.  Nico Hulkenberg      ART                 1m30.884s  + 0.065s
 4.  Lucas di Grassi      Racing Engineering  1m31.067s  + 0.248s
 5.  Davide Valsecchi     Addax               1m31.129s  + 0.310s
 6.  Roldan Rodriguez     Piquet              1m31.389s  + 0.570s
 7.  Alberto Valerio      Piquet              1m31.418s  + 0.599s
 8.  Pastor Maldonado     ART                 1m31.449s  + 0.630s
 9.  Giedo van der Garde  iSport              1m31.532s  + 0.713s
10.  Diego Nunes          iSport              1m31.569s  + 0.750s
11.  Jerome d'Ambrosio    DAMS                1m31.601s  + 0.782s
12.  Andreas Zuber        Coloni              1m31.673s  + 0.854s
13.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova          1m31.764s  + 0.945s
14.  Javier Villa         Super Nova          1m31.812s  + 0.993s
15.  Sergio Perez         Arden               1m31.886s  + 1.067s
16.  Luiz Razia           Coloni              1m32.140s  + 1.321s
17.  Davide Rigon         Trident             1m32.165s  + 1.346s
18.  Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                1m32.183s  + 1.364s
19.  Michael Herck        DPR                 1m32.376s  + 1.557s
20   Edoardo Mortara      Arden               1m32.807s  + 1.988s
21.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean               1m32.765s  + 1.946s
22.  Johnny Cecotto       DPR                 1m32.807s  + 1.988s
23.  Ricardo Teixeira     Trident             1m34.083s  + 3.264s
24.  Alvaro Parente       Ocean