Piquet team on top after practice

Diego Nunes and Roldan Rodriguez were first and second fastest, and set the best laptime, nearly half a second clear of the rest of the field. Rodriguez was able to match his team-mate's time despite missing half the session while the team fixed an ignition problem.

Luiz Razia was third quickest for Arden, with Alvaro Parente's Meritus car fourth. The title protagonists were next up, chaser Davide Valsecchi just a whisker quicker than points leader Kamui Kobayashi.

Edoardo Mortara made it two Ardens in the first seven, ahead of Jerome D'Ambrosio's DAMS car, with James Jakes (Super Nova) and Marco Bonanomi (Meritus) completing the top 10.

Vitaly Petrov completed just two laps of the session before stopping his car with an electrical gremlin.

Pos Driver                  Team          Time           Gap
 1. Diego Nunes             Piquet        1m44.290s
 2. Roldan Rodriguez        Piquet        1m44.290s
 3. Luiz Razia              Arden         1m44.768s   +0.478
 4. Alvaro Parente          Meritus       1m44.805s   +0.515
 5. Davide Valsecchi        Durango       1m44.827s   +0.537
 6. Kamui Kobayashi         DAMS          1m44.881s   +0.591
 7. Edoardo Mortara         Arden         1m44.943s   +0.653
 8. Jerome D'Ambrosio       DAMS          1m45.012s   +0.722
 9. James Jakes             Super Nova    1m45.181s   +0.891
10. Marco Bonanomi          Meritus       1m45.227s   +0.937
11. Giedo van der Garde     iSport        1m45.338s   +1.048
12. Michael Herck           DPR           1m45.382s   +1.092
13. Sakon Yamamoto          ART           1m45.553s   +1.263
14. Rodolfo Gonzalez        FMS           1m45.567s   +1.277
15. Sergio Perez            Barwa         1m45.594s   +1.304
16. Javier Villa            Super Nova    1m45.628s   +1.338
17. Davide Rigon            Trident       1m45.871s   +1.581
18. Hamad Al-Fardan         iSport        1m45.891s   +1.601
19. Pastor Maldonado        ART           1m45.941s   +1.651
20. Fabio Crestani          Ocean         1m46.351s   +2.061
21. Karun Chandhok          Ocean         1m46.756s   +2.466
22. Giacomo Ricci           DPR           1m46.886s   +2.596
23. Ricardo Teixeira        Trident       1m47.730s   +3.440
24. Kevin Chen              FMS           1m48.392s   +4.102
25. Michael Della Stelle    Durango       1m50.378s   +6.088
26. Vitaly Petrov           Barwa         2m02.117s  +17.827