Roma takes Estoril Superleague pole

Series debutant Franck Perera was the hero of the hour, the Roma driver holding his nerve to defeat Milan's Robert Doornbos in the single-lap shootout final.

Perera was up in sector one, despite a huge powerslide exiting Turn 2, taking a 0.065s lead but Doornbos hit back in sector two, taking 0.079s out of him. It looked like it would be ultra-close...but it wasn't. Perera gained (or Doornbos lost) a whopping three-tenths in the final sector to take pole at his first attempt.

"I'm really happy, it's great to be on pole," said Perera. "It's a very exciting qualifying format, and we have been improving the car run-by-run today. The car was good everywhere today, not just in the last sector, and now it's my aim to win both races tomorrow."

Doornbos added: "He can enjoy today, but tomorrow I think it will be a different story. I was not happy to get beaten in the final, and we've had a difficult day today - the team was chaotic this morning and didn't even have all the right parts in the right place!"

Both Roma and AC Milan had got through the semi finals the hard way, and required stunning last sector times, including carrying vast speed through the daunting Parabolica final corner, to defeat their rivals, Liverpool and Olympiakos respectively.

Liverpool's Adrian Valles, the practice pacesetter, remarked of Perera's last sector speed: "I don't know how he did that. I've looked at his lines on the TV, and I still don't know." Andersen, however, confessed to making a mistake.

In the quarter finals, Roma had defeated Corinthians, Olympiakos beat Borussia Dortmund, AC Milan vanquished series leader Beijing Goaun (who will start sixth) and Liverpool overcame Porto.

Pos  Driver                 Team         
 1.  Franck Perera          AS Roma          
 2.  Robert Doornbos        AC Milan         
 3.  Kasper Andersen        Olympiacos       
 4.  Adrián Vallés          Liverpool        
 5.  Tristan Gommendy       FC Porto         
 6.  Davide Rigon           Beijing Guoan    
 7.  Enrico Toccacelo       Borussia Dortmund
 8.  Antonio Pizzonia       Corinthians      
 9.  Craig Dolby            Anderlecht       
10.  Max Wissel             FC Basel         
11.  Andy Soucek            Atletico Madrid  
12.  Borja Garcia           Sevilla FC       
13.  Yelmer Buurman         PSV Eindhoven    
14.  Ryan Dalziel           Rangers          
15.  Alessandro Pier Guidi  Galatasaray      
16.  Tuka Rocha             Flamengo         
17.  Paul Meijer            Al Ain           
18.  Dominik Jackson        Tottenham Hotspur