Meritus racer Luca Filippi sets the pace in an eventful free practice session at the Yas Marina Circuit.

Last November during the opening round of the third season of the GP2 Asia Series at the Yas Marina Circuit, Luca Filippi showed an impressive pace, setting up the track record with a 1:51.415. Today, on the same track, the Meritus driver once again set the pace during free practice for the second round of the Asia Series.

The session started at twilight on an extremely dirty track with sand still in the air following a sandstorm earlier in the day. Arden's Charles Pic soon went quickest but his lap time was quickly bettered by Daniele Zampieri (Rapax).

Twelve minutes into the session, Alberto Valerio lost control of his Coloni car and hit the barrier leaving the marshals to try and get the nose cone unstuck and delaying the session for over twenty minutes. At that time Zampieri was leading Michael Herck, Vladimir Arabadzhiev and Giedo van der Garde.

The session was eventually restarted for fifteen minutes. Soon enough, Filippi was fastest only to be bettered first by Sergio Perez, then by Giacomo Ricci and finally by Pic. Taking a lot of risks in the third sector, Ocean's Fabio Leimer climbed to P2, but the battle for quickest was on between Filippi, series leader Davide Valsecchi and Pic.

With two minutes on the clock, Filippi claimed the top spot following an impressive third sector. Pic tried to deny him but unfortunately pushed a bit too hard and lost his car in the last corner. Joining the fight in the final seconds of the session, ART's Sam Bird claimed P2, but Valsecchi hadn't given up and set what he thought would be the quickest time right at the chequered flag. However, Filippi was on a mission: a few seconds later, he set the record straight to take pole back from the Italian.