Posted on 25th July 2014
Before Qualifying began, Johnny Cecotto was handed a three place grid penalty for the Feature Race in relation to his collision with Jolyon Palmer in Practice this morning. This meant the Venezuelan would not be able to collect the four points on offer for pole position.
Simon Trummer continued his tradition of being one of the first drivers out onto the track in Qualifying followed by Cecotto. Tom Dillmann was in a bit of a hurry to get out of the pit lane and had a very low speed crash with Sergio Canamasas – both were pushed back to their pit spaces for front wing changes.
In the early stages of the session it was Stéphane Richelmi who led his team mate Jolyon Palmer on the time sheets by an almost uncountable 0.003 seconds until Stoffel Vandoorne continued his pace from Practice to go top with a lap time of 1:28.886. Soon after, Richelmi ground to a halt on the start/finish straight but conveniently by a gate which was opened to allow the Monegasque driver to be pushed back to the pits.
After ten minutes of the session, Campos Racing team mates Arthur Pic and Kimiya Sato stunned the GP2 fraternity with laps that put the Spanish team's drivers 1-2 respectively.
The midpoint of the session saw all the drivers come into the pits apart from Daniël de Jong and Tom Dillmann. The Dutchman was emulating what he did in Germany last time out and managed to set a lap time worthy of P14 while Dillmann on the other hand went tremendously quicker and onto provisional pole by two tenths of a second.
In the final ten minutes when drivers generally make one final push for pole, Felipe Nasr succeeded with a time of 1:28.436 which went unbeaten by anyone else. Johnny Cecotto went fastest of anybody in the middle sector but ruined the lap with a scrappy final sector. Mitch Evans also looked capable of pole position but traffic in the final sector put paid to the Kiwi's chances.
Felipe Nasr's took his first ever pole position in GP2 and a valuable four points to close the gap in the Drivers' Standings to just 37 points. Jolyon Palmer couldn't manage to keep up his front row starting run and languishes down in P7 but will start from P6 due to Cecotto's three place penalty.
Another great Laser cut circuit by www.grahamandleigh.co.uk
Position Driver Team Gap
1 F. Nasr Carlin 1:28.436
2 T. Dillmann EQ8 Caterham Racing 0.182
3 A. Pic Campos Racing 0.207
4 K. Sato Campos Racing 0.222
5 J. Cecotto Trident 0.273
6 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 0.304
7 J. Palmer DAMS 0.355
8 R. Marciello Racing Engineering 0.496
9 M. Sørensen MP Motorsport 0.499
10 S. Richelmi DAMS 0.505
11 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 0.533
12 J. Leal Carlin 0.572
13 S. Trummer Rapax 0.624
14 D. Abt Hilmer Motorsport 0.689
15 S. Coletti Racing Engineering 0.703
16 S. Canamasas Trident 0.706
17 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 0.707
18 N. Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 0.781
19 C. Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 0.797
20 R. Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 0.841
21 A. Negrão Arden International 0.856
22 A. Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 1.026
23 J. Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 1.244
24 R. Binder Arden International 1.459
25 A. Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 1.642
26 T. Izawa ART Grand Prix 1.991
Callum Rowe
