Piquet grabs Nurburgring pole
Nelson Piquet Junior continued his great 2006 GP2 form by taking an excellent pole position for Saturday's GP2 feature race
Championship leader Piquet was one of only a few drivers to improve his time on his second set of tyres and scorched around in GP2-record pace, setting an unbeatable mark of 1:40.799.
This put him almost half a second up on the chasing pack in a session where the top 14 were covered by a second.
DAMS's Franck Perera held pole after the opening stint before being demoted by Piquet, but second was a great result for the Frenchman. For the third race in succession, Lewis Hamilton qualified third.
The Brit had a half spin on his second set of tyres at the chicane and clipped the back of Hiro Yoshimoto's BCN car. Neither car was damaged and Yoshimoto went on to claim an impressive fourth for the improved Spanish outfit.
Fifth went to free practice pacesetter Jose Maria Lopez, while Alex Premat made it two ART cars in the top six. Adam Carroll had his best session of the season to take seventh ahead of Nicolas Lapierre.
Imola winner Ernesto Viso starts ninth, Timo Glock tenth.
Lucas di Grassi's session ended in the gravel after he spun in the Durango. The Brazilian lines up 21st.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Piquet Jr Piquet Sports 1:40.799 11 2. Perera DAMS 1:41.241 + 0.442 14 3. Hamilton ART Grand Prix 1:41.325 + 0.526 10 4. Yoshimoto BCN Competicion 1:41.406 + 0.607 9 5. Lopez Super Nova International 1:41.471 + 0.672 12 6. Premat ART Grand Prix 1:41.478 + 0.679 10 7. Carroll Racing Engineering 1:41.576 + 0.777 12 8. Lapierre Arden International Ltd 1:41.622 + 0.823 11 9. Viso iSport International 1:41.664 + 0.865 13 10. Glock BCN Competicion 1:41.671 + 0.872 13 11. Valles Campos Racing 1:41.690 + 0.891 11 12. Ammermueller Arden International Ltd 1:41.768 + 0.969 10 13. Piccione DPR 1:41.769 + 0.970 10 14. Bruni Trident Racing 1:41.770 + 0.971 11 15. Zuber Trident Racing 1:41.814 + 1.015 13 16. Gommendy iSport International 1:41.841 + 1.042 13 17. Porteiro Campos Racing 1:41.913 + 1.114 14 18. Negrao Piquet Sports 1:42.029 + 1.230 12 19. Monfardini DAMS 1:42.096 + 1.297 11 20. Pla DPR 1:42.162 + 1.363 9 21. Di Grassi Durango 1:42.192 + 1.393 12 22. Hernandez Durango 1:42.513 + 1.714 11 23. Filippi FMS International 1:42.654 + 1.855 14 24. Villa Racing Engineering 1:42.784 + 1.985 10 25. Fauzy Super Nova International 1:43.151 + 2.352 14 26. Tahinci FMS International 1:43.812 + 3.013 10
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments