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.
Driver Team Time Laps Romain Grosjean Barwa Addax Team 01:19.5 15 Vitaly Petrov Barwa Addax Team 01:19.9 15 Nico Hülkenberg ART Grand Prix 01:20.1 19 Andreas Zuber FMSI 01:20.1 18 Lucas di Grassi Fat Burner Racing Eng. 01:20.3 17 Alvaro Parente Ocean Racing Technology 01:20.4 19 Jérome d’Ambrosio DAMS 01:20.5 17 Luca Filippi Super Nova Racing 01:20.6 17 Alberto Valerio Piquet GP 01:20.6 18 Karun Chandhok Ocean Racing Technology 01:20.6 17 Javier Villa Super Nova Racing 01:20.6 18 Sergio Perez Telmex Arden International 01:20.7 17 Dani Clos Fat Burner Racing Eng. 01:20.8 18 Pastor Maldonado ART Grand Prix 01:20.8 17 Giedo van der Garde iSport International 01:20.9 18 Davide Valsecchi Durango 01:21.1 19 Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 01:21.1 18 Edoardo Mortara Telmex Arden International 01:21.2 21 Davide Rigon Trident Racing 01:21.3 20 Roldan Rodriguez Piquet GP 01:21.4 18 Diego Nunes iSport International 01:22.1 8 Luiz Razia FMSI 01:22.4 20 Giacomo Ricci DPR 01:22.7 20 Michael Herck DPR 01:23.1 20 Vitaly Petrov Durango 01:23.5 18 Ricardo Teixeira Trident Racing 01:25.7 17
| 
|