Giorgio Pantano stepped up another gear in qualifying from his already astonishing turn of speed this morning to put himself on pole for tomorrow's race one in Istanbul, easily claiming the top spot from Andreas Zuber and Series returnee Adam Carroll.
The Italian's pace was untouchable as he smashed the 1:33 barrier to set a lap time of 1:32.659 on his final lap, beating his own time to put himself even further ahead of the competition, with Zuber more than two tenths off the pace and the Ulsterman another two tenths further back.
Kamui Kobayashi was pushing hard to make up will line up at the back of the grid tomorrow along with Alberto Valerio, who has the same 5 place grid penalty for crossing the finish line twice after the session.
Ben Hanley will be just ahead of them in 22nd place as a result of a 10-place penalty for causing an avoidable crash in Barcelona.
Alvaro Parente is another driver who seems unlikely to repeat his Barcelona form: after stopping on track this morning he lost the rear going into turn three and spun to a stop in the middle of the next corner.
Behind the top three Grosjean, Senna, Maldonado, Karun Chandhok, and Javier Villa will line up on the grid tomorrow: if the race pace is as good as that shown today it promises to be a classic event at the always exciting Turkish circuit.
Qualifying order :
1.G. Pantano
2.A.Zuber +.254
3.A. Carroll +.482
4.R. Grosjean +.589
5.B. Senna + .790
6.P. Maldonado +.792
7.K. Chandhok + 1.044
8.J. Villa + 1.154
9.D. Valsecchi + 1.182
10.V. Petrov + 1.237
11.J. D'Ambrosio + 1.289
12.A. Valles + 1.347
13.A. Soucek + 1.405
14.M. Conway + 1.511
15.S. Buemi + 1.514
16.Y. Buurman + 1.527
17.L. Filippi + 1.707
18.H. Tung + 1.847
19.D. Nunes + 1.958
20.A. Parente + 1.961
21.R. Rodrigues + 2.039
22.B. Hanley --------- (Penalty)
23.M. Pavlovic + 2.739
24.G. Ricci + 3.219
25.K. Kobayashi -------- (Penalty)
26.A. Valerio --------- (Penalty)
The Italian's pace was untouchable as he smashed the 1:33 barrier to set a lap time of 1:32.659 on his final lap, beating his own time to put himself even further ahead of the competition, with Zuber more than two tenths off the pace and the Ulsterman another two tenths further back.
Kamui Kobayashi was pushing hard to make up will line up at the back of the grid tomorrow along with Alberto Valerio, who has the same 5 place grid penalty for crossing the finish line twice after the session.
Ben Hanley will be just ahead of them in 22nd place as a result of a 10-place penalty for causing an avoidable crash in Barcelona.
Alvaro Parente is another driver who seems unlikely to repeat his Barcelona form: after stopping on track this morning he lost the rear going into turn three and spun to a stop in the middle of the next corner.
Behind the top three Grosjean, Senna, Maldonado, Karun Chandhok, and Javier Villa will line up on the grid tomorrow: if the race pace is as good as that shown today it promises to be a classic event at the always exciting Turkish circuit.
Qualifying order :
1.G. Pantano
2.A.Zuber +.254
3.A. Carroll +.482
4.R. Grosjean +.589
5.B. Senna + .790
6.P. Maldonado +.792
7.K. Chandhok + 1.044
8.J. Villa + 1.154
9.D. Valsecchi + 1.182
10.V. Petrov + 1.237
11.J. D'Ambrosio + 1.289
12.A. Valles + 1.347
13.A. Soucek + 1.405
14.M. Conway + 1.511
15.S. Buemi + 1.514
16.Y. Buurman + 1.527
17.L. Filippi + 1.707
18.H. Tung + 1.847
19.D. Nunes + 1.958
20.A. Parente + 1.961
21.R. Rodrigues + 2.039
22.B. Hanley --------- (Penalty)
23.M. Pavlovic + 2.739
24.G. Ricci + 3.219
25.K. Kobayashi -------- (Penalty)
26.A. Valerio --------- (Penalty)