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Singapore GP2: Luca Filippi takes pole, Davide Valsecchi beats Luiz Razia

GP2 Series comeback king Luca Filippi will start Saturday's feature race in Singapore from pole position after the series' first-ever night-time qualifying session

Filippi lapped the Marina Bay circuit in 1m59.444s to defeat Carlin's Max Chilton by 0.052 seconds.

Following the earlier free practice session held in wet conditions, a dry track meant even more pressure was on teams to guesstimate their set-ups for the final qualifying session of the season.

Further complicating matters were the two tyre choices on offer, soft and super soft, with iSport's Jolyon Palmer appearing to have pulled off a masterstroke by topping the times using the harder of the tyre options with half of the session gone.

But in the final reckoning the super soft-shod cars of Filippi and Chilton outpaced him by over half a second, and Palmer was also eclipsed by the similarly soft-shod Esteban Gutierrez of Lotus.

Fabio Leimer was fifth for Racing Engineering, ahead of points leader Davide Valsecchi of DAMS. Valsecchi's title rival, Luiz Razia, was only ninth fastest for Arden, despite monstering his car around to the best of his ability, so he remains 25 points adrift at the season finale.

The session was red flagged with 1m25s on the clock when Nigel Melker stuffed his Ocean-run car into the barrier right beneath the marina grandstand. That meant those who had planned late flying laps were thwarted, and the session was not restarted.

Expected frontrunners such as Felipe Nasr, Giedo van der Garde and James Calado found themselves stranded down in 13th, 14th and 15th respectively.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Luca Filippi         Coloni              1m59.444s
 2.  Max Chilton          Carlin              1m59.496s  + 0.052s
 3.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus               1m59.908s  + 0.464s
 4.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport              2m00.102s  + 0.658s
 5.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering  2m00.113s  + 0.669s
 6.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                2m00.287s  + 0.843s
 7.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax               2m00.335s  + 0.891s
 8.  Stefano Coletti      Rapax               2m00.364s  + 0.920s
 9.  Luiz Razia           Arden               2m00.365s  + 0.921s
10.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus             2m00.634s  + 1.190s
11.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident             2m00.671s  + 1.227s
12.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering  2m00.695s  + 1.251s
13.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                2m00.720s  + 1.276s
14.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham            2m00.906s  + 1.462s
15.  James Calado         Lotus               2m00.954s  + 1.510s
16.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin              2m01.031s  + 1.587s
17.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport              2m01.204s  + 1.760s
18.  Nigel Melker         Ocean               2m01.308s  + 1.864s
19.  Julian Leal          Trident             2m01.474s  + 2.030s
20.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni              2m01.656s  + 2.212s
21.  Simon Trummer        Arden               2m01.961s  + 2.517s
22.  Victor Guerin        Ocean               2m02.110s  + 2.666s
23.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham            2m02.260s  + 2.816s
24.  Rene Binder          Lazarus             2m02.376s  + 2.932s
25.  Jake Rosenzweig      Addax               2m03.218s  + 3.774s
26.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax               2m04.174s  + 4.730s

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