Sergio Perez delighted his Addax team with a last minute pole position at their local track this afternoon in Valencia, claiming the top spot at the very last minute to break the hearts of Pastor Maldonado and Jules Bianchi.
The Mexican followed up this morning’s stellar performance with a lap time of 1:45.337 as the chequered flag dropped to claim pole by just one tenth of a second from his Venezuelan rival, who had thought he’d done enough earlier to put himself at the front of tomorrow’s grid.
Maldonado was the first man on track this afternoon, and led the standing from the opening minutes: the Addax pairing of Giedo van der Garde and Perez briefly put themselves ahead about seven minutes in, but the Venezuelan soon reclaimed the top spot and looked unruffled as he put himself a second clear of the rest of the field.
A fresh set of tyres for everyone seemed not to make a difference until the closing minutes of the session, when it appeared that everyone had found a power button and all started to eat into Maldonado’s time: Perez left his run until it the very last minute, and the Venezuelan was simply out of time to react.
Along with Bianchi’s last minute dash to P3, most of the grid improved in the closing moments of the session, with Davide Valsecchi, Giedo van der Garde, Michael Herck, Charles Pic, Christian Vietoris, Giacomo Ricci and Sam Bird lining up behind the top three, all within a second of pole. If this performance continues we can expect fireworks during tomorrow’s feature race.
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