Posted on 5th July 2014
Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello has confirmed his pace in Practice by securing his first ever pole position in GP2.
Before the first dry Qualifying at Silverstone for three years began, the stewards said that any driver leaving the circuit and and subsequently gaining an advantage would have their lap time deleted.
It was Simon Trummer and Johnny Cecotto leading the drivers out onto the circuit for the second time today. Cecotto's first lap would have been deleted but the Venezuelan backed out of his attempt having gone wide at Copse corner. Jolyon Palmer, however made no such mistake and sat at the top of the timing screen after the first laps. His time of 1:40.472 was beaten slightly by Raffaele Marciello moments later.
The first half of the session was rather uneventful and after 15 minutes it was the Racing Engineering driver of Marciello leading: Palmer, Mitch Evans, Julián Leal, Stoffel Vandoorne, Felipe Nasr, Stéphane Richelmi, Marco Sørensen, Daniel Abt and Johnny Cecotto.
Simon Trummer was languishing down in last place having had lap times deleted earlier on. At the midpoint lull out on track, the Swiss driver improved up to P20; just 1.2 seconds off the ultimate pace of Marciello.
Flashbacks of Austria came flooding in as very few drivers were able to improve their times in the second half of the session. Leal, Marciello, Evans and Richelmi all struggled to mount a further challenge in the latter stages of the session while Palmer was clearly frustrated to have an attempt at pole hampered by Daniel Abt through the Maggots and Becketts section of the lap.
After 30 minutes of battles for the Feature Race pole position, Raffaele Marciello's lap time of 1:40.445 from the first half of the session was unbeaten by his 25 rivals which guaranteed him his first pole in the GP2 Series. Lello on pole and Palmer, Evans and Leal who will line up in positions 2-4 were separated by an unbelievably small margin of 0.039 seconds.
An even more unbelievable statement was the Qualifying performance of Marco Sørensen who set a time worthy of P7 on his debut weekend in GP2.
Position Driver Team Gap
1 R. Marciello Racing Engineering 1:40.445
2 J. Palmer DAMS 0.027
3 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 0.033
4 J. Leal Carlin 0.039
5 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 0.201
6 F. Nasr Carlin 0.213
7 M. Sørensen MP Motorsport 0.213
8 S. Richelmi DAMS 0.317
9 J. Cecotto Trident 0.400
10 D. Abt Hilmer Motorsport 0.435
11 S. Coletti Racing Engineering 0.440
12 A. Pic Campos Racing 0.516
13 S. Trummer Rapax 0.619
14 R. Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 0.721
15 S. Canamasas Trident 0.751
16 A. Rossi EQ8 Caterham Racing 0.790
17 A. Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 0.807
18 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 0.885
19 N. Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 0.917
20 J. Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 1.104
21 C. Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 1.111
22 K. Sato Campos Racing 1.241
23 A. Negrão Arden International 1.463
24 T. Izawa ART Grand Prix 1.558
25 R. Binder Arden International 1.928
26 A. Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 2.279
Callum Rowe
“Silverstone by grahamandleigh.co.uk
