24/04/2009
NEWS STORY
The Dams pair were quickest in today's qualifying session, Jerome d'Ambrosio finishing ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, but it will be the Japanese driver who starts from pole position tomorrow with the Piquet duo behind him.
After achieving a first pole position in Malaysia three weeks ago, d'Ambrosio posted another quickest lap time in today's final qualifying session of the 08-09 GP2 Asia Series Championship.
However, following a black flag received in Sepang's sprint race the Belgian will drop ten places on tomorrow's feature race grid. consequently, it will be his teammate and Championship leader, Kamui Kobayashi, who will start from pole position, pocketing the two bonus points in the process and taking him even closer to the title.
Shanghai's feature race winner Roldan Rodriguez and Sepang's feature race winner Diego Nunes (Piquet) confirmed this morning's good form and will start tomorrow's race from second and third places.
ART's Pastor Maldonado posted a lap time good enough to put him fifth quickest with just five minutes left on the clock. But the man rounding up the Top 10, Alvaro Parente, could have featured higher in the hierarchy had he had not been blocked by Maldonado on his flying lap. Sadly for him, the Qi-Meritus' driver will have to be satisfied with a tenth best time for today. On the other hand, the experienced Venezuelan driver received a five position grid penalty.
At Arden, rookie Luiz Razia once again displayed good pace, posting the sixth best time, ahead of fellow rookie Giedo van der Garde (GFH Team iSport). Davide Valsecchi may have lost the opportunity to keep the title fight alive past the feature race as he could only set the eighth best performance barely edging out Javier Villa.
Only two laps completed during this morning's practice and a wrong choice of set up in this afternoon's qualifying session mean that title contender Vitaly Petrov will start from 20th tomorrow.