Grosjean storms to Dubai pole

The Frenchman lapped his ART Grand Prix machine in 1:40.887 to take pole by just over two tenths of a second from iSport's Bruno Senna.

Kamui Kobayashi will start third for DAMS, but had Grosjean worried in the closing seconds of the session when he suddenly set the fastest first sector, but he was unable to complete the lap as quickly as he started it.

Senna was troubled by a spin and being blocked on fresh tyres by Durango's Davide Valsecchi on his way to the front row. Teammate Karun Chandhok, usually a front-runner in qualifying, will start down in 13th.

The session was effectively split into two by a lengthy yellow flag to retrieve the crashed Durango car of Alberto Valerio. The Brazilian, who also shunted in practice, lost control under braking for Turn 10 and slammed into the wall, damaging the right-rear corner, which he blamed for causing the crash in the first place.

When it resumed, Grosjean was one of the few to improve his time early on, and needed to as Senna's final effort was quicker than Romain's previous best.

Marco Bonanomi sprang a surprise with the fourth fastest time for Piquet Sports. Hiroki Yoshimoto will start fifth after setting exactly the same time as Arden's Yelmer Buurman - but crucially he set it first, so he gets the position.

Vitaly Petrov was seventh fastest, ahead of Sebastien Buemi, Luca Filippi and Valsecchi. Jason Tahinci was a career-best 11th, while those struggling included Fairuz Fauzy (19th), Ben Hanley (21st) and Stephen Jelley (22nd).

Pos Driver                  Team           Time      Gap    Laps
 1. Romain Grosjean         ART            1:40.887           14
 2. Bruno Senna             iSport         1:41.095  +0.208   14
 3. Kamui Kobayashi         DAMS           1:41.224  +0.337   15
 4. Marco Bonanomi          Piquet Sports  1:41.629  +0.742   15
 5. Hiroki Yoshimoto        Meritus        1:41.819  +0.932   15
 6. Yelmer Buurman          Arden          1:41.819  +0.932   15
 7. Vitaly Petrov           Campos         1:41.836  +0.949   15
 8. Sebastien Buemi         Arden          1:41.870  +0.983   14
 9. Luca Filippi            Meritus        1:41.962  +1.075   10
10. Davide Valsecchi        Durango        1:41.988  +1.101   15
11. Jason Tahinci           BCN            1:41.998  +1.111   16
12. Alberto Valerio         Durango        1:42.056  +1.169    3
13. Karun Chandhok          iSport         1:42.063  +1.176   15
14. Jerome D'Ambrosio       DAMS           1:42.089  +1.202   14
15. Milos Pavlovic          BCN            1:42.136  +1.249   14
16. Harald Schleghelmilch   Trident        1:42.223  +1.336   14
17. Ho-Pin Tung             Trident        1:42.301  +1.414   15
18. Adrian Valles           FMS            1:42.358  +1.471    7
19. Fairuz Fauzy            Super Nova     1:42.440  +1.553   14
20. Christian Bakkerud      Super Nova     1:42.652  +1.765   17
21. Ben Hanley              Campos         1:42.657  +1.770   14
22. Stephen Jelley          ART            1:42.697  +1.810   14
23. Marcello Puglisi        Piquet Sports  1:42.717  +1.830   13
24. Armaan Ebrahim          DPR            1:42.866  +1.979   14
25. Roldan Rodriguez        FMS            1:43.254  +2.367   13
26. Diego Nunes             DPR            1:43.839  +2.952    4