GP2 news

Kobayashi on pole for first race in Bahrain

DAMS driver Jérôme d'Ambrosio finished ahead of team-mate Kamui Kobayashi in today's qualifying session at Sakhir, but it will be the Japanese who will start on pole position tomorrow with the Piquet duo chasing after him.

After achieving a first pole position in Malaysia three weeks ago, d'Ambrosio posted another quickest lap time in today's last qualifying session in Bahrain, scene of the final GP2 Asia Series races of the season.

However, following a black flag received in Sepang's sprint race, Belgian d'Ambrosio will drop ten places on the grid for tomorrow's feature race grid. Therefore team-mate and championship leader, Kamui Kobayashi, starts on pole position and pockets the two bonus points in the process and taking him even closer to the title.

Shanghai's feature race winner Roldan Rodriguez and Sepang's feature race winner Diego Nunes at Piquet confirmed their morning's good form and will start tomorrow's race respectively from second and third place.

ART's Pastor Maldonado posted a laptime good enough to put him fifth quickest of the session with just five minutes left on the clock. But the man rounding up the Top 10 could have featured higher in the hierarchy had he had not been slightly blocked by Maldonado in his flying lap. Sadly for him, Qi-Meritus' Alvaro Parente will have to be satisfied with a tenth best laptime for today. On the other hand, the experienced Venezuelan received a five position grid penalty.

At Arden's, rookie Luiz Razia once again displayed a good pace, posting the sixth best laptime, ahead of another rookie Giedo van der Garde at GFH Team iSport. Davide Valsecchi may have lost the opportunity to keep the title fight alive past the feature race as he could only set the eighth best performance barely edging out Javier Villa.

Only two laps completed during this morning's practice and a wrong choice of set up in this afternoon's qualifying session will see title contender Vitaly Petrov start from 20th tomorrow. Kobayashi's road to the GP2 Asia crown seems wide opened.

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