Piquet takes pole at Istanbul
Nelson Piquet Jr reduced Lewis Hamilton's championship lead by a further two points - to just nine - with yet another stunning pole effort in Turkey today
The Piquet Sports star recorded his best time of 1:34.741 on his first flying lap, 10 minutes into the session, and it remained good enough for the pole 20 minutes later when the chequered flag fell.
Jose Maria Lopez of Super Nova came closest to displacing the Brazilian - 0.004 seconds in fact - but Piquet clung on to further boost his title hopes.
Giorgio Pantano continued his strong recent form with a good run to third, while ART teammates Alex Premat and Hamilton took fourth and fifth respectively, 0.4 seconds down on the pole sitter.
Clearly there is still much work to be done in Hamilton's camp if he's to prevent Piquet from eating even further into his points lead in tomorrow's feature race.
Adam Carroll took a solid sixth for Racing Engineering, while Xandi Negrao showed Piquet Sports' good form with eighth.
It was a tough session for home town hero Jason Tahinci, whose effort went up in smoke with the FMS car coasting to a halt.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Piquet Jr. Piquet Sports 1:34.741 11 2. Lopez Super Nova International 1:34.745 + 0.004 11 3. Pantano FMS International 1:35.068 + 0.327 11 4. Premat ART Grand Prix 1:35.151 + 0.410 11 5. Hamilton ART Grand Prix 1:35.169 + 0.428 12 6. Carroll Racing Engineering 1:35.579 + 0.838 12 7. Di Grassi Durango 1:35.584 + 0.843 16 8. Viso iSport International 1:35.672 + 0.931 13 9. Negrao Piquet Sports 1:35.675 + 0.934 14 10. Glock iSport International 1:35.824 + 1.083 11 11. Zuber Trident Racing 1:35.899 + 1.158 13 12. Bruni Trident Racing 1:36.145 + 1.404 12 13. Piccione DPR 1:36.226 + 1.485 12 14. Perera DAMS 1:36.259 + 1.518 12 15. Valles Campos Racing 1:36.364 + 1.623 14 16. Monfardini DAMS 1:36.367 + 1.626 12 17. Yoshimoto BCN Competicion 1:36.587 + 1.846 11 18. Ammermueller Arden International Ltd 1:36.617 + 1.876 13 19. Villa Racing Engineering 1:36.733 + 1.992 14 20. Hernandez Durango 1:36.776 + 2.035 15 21. Lapierre Arden International Ltd 1:36.800 + 2.059 13 22. Porteiro Campos Racing 1:37.111 + 2.370 14 23. Filippi BCN Competicion 1:37.313 + 2.572 13 24. Tahinci FMS International 1:37.695 + 2.954 9 25. Fauzy Super Nova International 1:37.878 + 3.137 9 26. Petrov DPR No time 2
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