18/07/2008
NEWS STORY
Giorgio Pantano stormed to pole position in this afternoon's qualifying session at the Hockenheimring, claiming the top spot ahead of Romain Grosjean and Andreas Zuber.
The Italian's best lap of 1:21.650 put him three tenths ahead of his nearest rivals in the first half of the session, and with temperatures dropping as time passed, his rivals were unable to respond on track.
The session opened under blue skies, prompting all of the drivers to get out on track immediately to set banker laps: Zuber, Bruno Senna, Pantano and Grosjean set the early running when they were able to find a hole in the traffic, but Pantano stayed out for one lap longer than most of his rivals and was able to take advantage of the clear track to set his best lap of the session, before spinning on the next lap and coming back to the pits for fresh tyres.
With ten minutes remaining all bar Pantano had re-emerged onto the track, but with clouds closing in over the circuit the temperature dropped immediately and, despite everyone's best efforts, there was no chance of improving for anyone in the top half of the timesheet, leaving Grosjean unable to match his top spot from this morning's practice session.
Behind the top three Sébastien Buemi, Lucas di Grassi, Senna, Alvaro Parente, Kamui Kobayashi, Javier Villa and Vitaly Petrov rounded out the first four rows for tomorrow's grid, with the top ten places within a second of pole raising the possibility of a thrilling race one tomorrow afternoon.
Provided by the GP2 Series Media Service