1-2 for Barwa Addax pair

Romain Grosjean dominated yesterday afternoon's qualifying session in Monaco with a stunning display of speed and precision as he smashed the previous track record for the series to claim pole position for tomorrow's feature race ahead of teammate Vitaly Petrov and Nico Hülkenberg.

The Frenchman set an early fastest lap and then improved it again on the ten minute mark, and just to rub salt into his rivals' wounds he went even quicker with two minutes remaining to set a best time of 1:19.498 just as his teammate got to within half a second of his best time. Pastor Maldonado and Andreas Zuber were scrapping for the top spot early in the session until Grosjean stormed in with an untouchable lead. Initially it looked as though the time has stunned the pitlane into silence, but eventually his rivals came back and chipped away at his time, first Luca Filippi, then Zuber, then Jérôme d'Ambrosio until, with a few minutes remaining, the floodgates opened.

Petrov, Hülkenberg, Lucas di Grassi and Zuber all improved their times in the final two minutes until Grosjean went even quicker: on the final lap of the session he circulated again, just in case, but after setting another fastest first sector he slowed down, knowing the job was done. Behind the top three were Zuber, di Grassi, Alvaro Parente, d'Ambrosio and Filippi, but while the battle for second was fierce there was no doubt that Grosjean had claimed his second pole position of the season.

Monaco - Qualifying session Driver Team Time Laps 1. Romain Grosjean Barwa Addax Team 1:19.498 15 2. Vitaly Petrov Barwa Addax Team 1:19.948 15 3. Nico Hülkenberg ART Grand Prix 1:20.053 19 4. Andreas Zuber FMSI 1:20.065 19 5. Lucas di Grassi Fat Burner Racing Eng. 1:20.308 18 6. Alvaro Parente Ocean Racing Technology 1:20.424 17 7. Jérôme d'Ambrosio DAMS 1:20.494 19 8. Luca Filippi Super Nova Racing 1:20.573 17 9. Alberto Valerio Piquet GP 1:20.597 17 10. Karun Chandhok Ocean Racing Technology 1:20.608 18 11. Javier Villa Super Nova Racing 1:20.634 17 12. Sergio Perez Telmex Arden International 1:20.735 18 13. Dani Clos Fat Burner Racing Eng. 1:20.750 17 14. Pastor Maldonado ART Grand Prix 1:20.806 18 15. Giedo van der Garde iSport International 1:20.933 17 16. Davide Valsecchi Durango 1:21.072 18 17. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 1:21.136 19 18. Edoardo Mortara Telmex Arden International 1:21.204 18 19. Davide Rigon Trident Racing 1:21.268 21 20 Roldan Rodriguez Piquet GP 1:21.390 20 21. Diego Nunes iSport International 1:22.052 18 22. Luiz Razia FMSI 1:22.447 8 23. Giacomo Ricci DPR 1:22.746 20 24. Michael Herck DPR 1:23.056 20 25 Nelson Panciatici Durango 1:23.479 18 26. Ricardo Teixeira Trident Racing 1:25.710 17