Pastor put it on pole again in the Principality.
Pastor Maldonado has repeated his triumphs of last year by claiming pole in Monaco once again, taking the top spot in yesterday afternoon's qualifying session despite constant pressure from Bruno Senna and Mike Conway.
Maldonado's best lap of 1:21.057 was set halfway through the session, putting himself at the head of the timesheets despite touching the wall on entry to the tunnel: his rivals pushed hard to match the Venezuelan's time but just missed out, with a red flag in the closing stages of the session putting paid to their efforts.
Once again Maldonado was the first man on track, with Andy Soucek just behind him: the latter was soon to regret his haste as he collected the wall at St Devote. The Venezuelan pushed a little too hard at the same corner next time by, but managed to stay off the barriers and find his way back on track with the help of the marshals. Romain Grosjean, Adrian Valles and Senna set the early pace as everyone tried to find a way through the traffic, a task which was made a little more difficult when Ho-Pin Tung ran too hot through the swimming pool complex and lost the rear of his car at the exit, with Marcello Puglisi also going through Casino square too fast and finding out the hard way just how close the barriers are at this circuit.
But when most of the field came in for new tyres Maldonado struck, setting two fast laps and giving his competitors a target to aim for: Valles was in fourth place and looking for more but just caught the barriers at St Devote, which pitched him into a spin and the wall on the other side of the track, prompting an immediate red flag. With just three minutes remaining it was unlikely that anyone would improve their times when the circuit reopened, and so it proved. Just behind the top three Valles managed to hold on to fourth position despite his accident, just ahead of Giorgio Pantano, Karun Chandhok, Romain Grosjean and Sébastien Buemi, with the first 14 drivers covered by just one second despite the usual traffic woes. With so many drivers this close on the timesheets, tomorrow's race promises to be a race not to be missed. Monaco –
Qualifications Provisional Results
Driver Team Time Laps
1. Pastor Maldonado Piquet Sports 1:21.057 19
2. Bruno Senna iSport International 1:21.235 15
3. Mike Conway Trident Racing 1:21.283 18
4. Adrian Valles BCN Competicion 1:21.368 16
5. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering 1:21.466 17
6. Karun Chandhok iSport International 1:21.614 18
7. Romain Grosjean ART Grand Prix 1:21.663 16
8. Sébastien Buemi Trust Team Arden 1:21.663 20
9. Andreas Zuber Piquet Sports 1:21.667 17
10. Jérôme d’Ambrosio Dams 1:21.773 18
11. Alvaro Parente Super Nova Racing 1:21.777 18
12. Luca Filippi ART Grand Prix 1:21.849 15
13. Vitaly Petrov Barwa International Campos Team 1:21.907 17
14. Adam Carroll Fisichella Motor Sport International 1:21.981 17
15. Christian Bakerud Super Nova Racing 1:22.210 19
16. Ben Hanley Barwa international Campos Team 1:22.697 16
17. Kamui Kobayashi Dams 1:22.785 20
18. Yelmer Buurman Trust Team Arden 1:22.802 18
19. Javier Villa Racing Engineering 1:23.048 17
20 Diego Nunes DPR 1:23.224 17
21. Milos Pavlovic BCN Competicion 1:23.684 19
22. Ho-Pin Tung Trident Racing 1:23.798 7
23. Alberto Valerio Durango 1:24.037 18
24. Roldan Rodriguez Fisichella Motor Sport International 1:24.283 18
25 Marcello Puglisi Durango 1:24.633 8 26. Andy Soucek DPR
