Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
05/21/2009
Monte-Carlo (MC)
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Grosjean took his second pole in two attempts this year (LAT)
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Provided by the GP2 press office
Romain Grosjean dominated this afternoon's qualifying session in Monaco with a stunning display of speed and precision as he smashed the previous track record for the series to claim pole position for tomorrow's feature race ahead of teammate Vitaly Petrov and Nico Hülkenberg.
The Frenchman set an early fastest lap and then improved it again on the ten minute mark, and just to rub salt into his rivals’ wounds he went even quicker with two minutes remaining to set a best time of 1:19.498 just as his teammate got to within half a second of his best time.
Pastor Maldonado and Andreas Zuber were scrapping for the top spot early in the session until Grosjean stormed in with an untouchable lead. Initially it looked as though the time has stunned the pitlane into silence, but eventually his rivals came back and chipped away at his time, first Luca Filippi, then Zuber, then Jérôme d'Ambrosio until, with a few minutes remaining, the floodgates opened.
Petrov, Hülkenberg, Lucas di Grassi and Zuber all improved their times in the final two minutes until Grosjean went even quicker: on the final lap of the session he circulated again, just in case, but after setting another fastest first sector he slowed down, knowing the job was done.
Behind the top three were Zuber, di Grassi, Alvaro Parente, d'Ambrosio and Filippi, but while the battle for second was fierce there was no doubt that Grosjean had claimed his second pole position of the season.
Qualifying Results
1 Romain Grosjean (Barwa Addax Team) 1:19.498
2 Vitaly Petrov (Barwa Addax Team) +0.450
3 Nico Hulkenberg (ART Grand Prix) +0.555
4 Andreas Zuber (Fisichella Motor Sport) +0.567
5 Lucas di Grassi (Fat Burner Racing Engineering) +0.810
6 Alvaro Parente (Ocean Racing Technology) +0.926
7 Jerome D'Ambrosio (Dams) +0.996
8 Luca Filippi (Super Nova Racing) +1.075
9 Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) +1.099
10 Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing Technology) +1.110
11 Javier Villa (Super Nova Racing) +1.136
12 Sergio Perez (Telmex Arden International) +1.237
13 Dani Clos (Fat Burner Racing Engineering) +1.252
14 Pastor Maldonado (ART Grand Prix) +1.308
15 Giedo van der Garde (iSport International) +1.435
16 Davide Valsecchi (Durango) +1.574
17 Kamui Kobayashi (Dams) +1.638
18 Edoardo Mortara (Telmex Arden International) +1.706
19 Davide Rigon (Trident Racing) +1.770
20 Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) +1.892
21 Diego Nunes (iSport International) +2.554
22 Luiz Razia (Fisichella Motor Sport) +2.949
23 Giacomo Ricci (DPR) +3.248
24 Michael Herck (DPR) +3.558
25 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +3.981
Did not qualify:
26 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident Racing) +6.212
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