GP2 ASIA SERIES

KAMUI KOBAYASHI TAKES POLE IN DUBAI

The Japanese ace got his revenge: seeking pole position in Shanghai and failing, he brilliantly managed to be the quickest man of the day, securing the top spot of the grid for tomorrow’s feature race of the second round of the GP2 Asia Series. He delivered his best performance with only two minutes left on the clock.

In a trouble-free session and a cleaner track than during Free Practice, Kobayashi signed the fastest laptime ahead of countryman Sakon Yamamoto at the wheel of his ART car. Vitaly Petrov completed the top 3 – an all Asian driver top finishers, but the Russian from Campos was quite disappointed coming out of his car as he was really aiming for pole. However, traffic and a clash with van Der Drift in his final lap meant that Petrov never had the opportunity to show the true potential of his machine.

The championship leader, Roldan Rodriguez at Piquet GP secured the second row, clocking the fourth quickest laptime, ahead of Shanghai sprint race winner Davide Valsecchi at Durango. Yelmer Buurman brought another great result to newcomers Ocean Racing Technology, finishing 6th, ahead of rookie van der Garde at GFH Team iSport.

Earlier in the session, Diego Nunes looked like a real poleman contender, but he eventually placed his Piquet GP car in eighth place ahead of another rookie, Sergio Perez, on the second Campos car. Dams’ d’Ambrosio completed the Top 10. The first twelve cars finished in the same second.

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Kamui Kobayashi	Dams	1:41.091	13
2.	Sakon Yamamoto	ART Grand Prix	1:41.275	12
3.	Vitaly Petrov	Barwa Int. Campos Team	1:41.341	13
4.	Roldan Rodriguez	Piquet GP	1:41.376	15
5.	Davide Valsecchi	Durango	1:41.472	15
6.	Yelmer Buurman	Ocean Racing Technology	1:41.550	14
7.	Giedo Van der Garde	GFH Team iSport	1:41.557	15
8.	Diego Nunes	Piquet GP	1:41.593	15
9.	Sergio Perez	Barwa Int. Campos Team	1:41.768	15
10.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Dams	1:41.777	14
11.	Andreas Zuber	Fisichella Motor Sport Int.	1:41.798	14
12.	Pastor Maldonado	ART Grand Prix	1:41.838	13
13.	Renger van der Zande	Trust Team Arden	1:42.054	15
14.	Javier Villa	Super Nova Racing	1:42.062	13
15.	James Jakes	Super Nova Racing	1:42.066	15
16.	Earl Bamber	MY Qi-Meritus.Mahara	1:42.068	15
17.	Luiz Razia	Trust Team Arden	1:42.204	14
18.	Giacomo Ricci	DPR	1:42.351	14
19.	Hamad Al Fardan	GFH Teal iSport	1:42.367	15
20	Alberto Valerio	Trident Racing	1:42.541	15
21.	Alex Yoong	MY Qi-Meritus.Mahara	1:43.026	14
22.	Michael Herck	DPR	1:43.102	14
23.	Fabrizio Crestani	Ocean Racing Technology	1:43.316	14
24.	Chris van Der Drift	Trident Racing	1:43.393	15
25	Michael Dalle Stelle	Durango	1:45.603	15
26	Kevin Nai Chia Chen	Fisichella Motor Sport Int.	1:48.411	16