Formula V8 3.5

Donington: Qualifying report

Parente grabs top spot! Alvaro Parente (Tech 1 Racing) secured his second pole position of the season this morning, his four points propelling him to top of the overall standings ahead of Sebastian Vettel. The Portuguese driver will be joined on ...

Published: Sep 9, 2007, 5:07 AM

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Parente grabs top spot!

Alvaro Parente (Tech 1 Racing) secured his second pole position of the season this morning, his four points propelling him to top of the overall standings ahead of Sebastian Vettel. The Portuguese driver will be joined on the front row by Fairuz Fauzy (Cram Competition). Alvaro Barba (Draco Racing) and Julien Jousse (Tech 1 Racing) lie in wait just behind.

Group B

Filipe Albuquerque (Epsilon Euskadi) wasted no time in attacking after his warm-up lap. With a satisfactory first time under his belt, he continued to drive aggressively, but ran into trouble, doing well to control his car as it went into a 360 -spin on the green grass of Donington Park.

Meanwhile, Fairuz Fauzy (Cram Competition) and Julien Jousse (Tech 1 Racing) took the top two places. Both men went quicker on their next lap, while Alejandro NuÃ±ez (Red Devil Comtec) snatched third place from Albuquerque. Just before the session's halfway stage, Ben Hanley (Prema Power Team) squeezed in between Fauzy and Jousse. But the young Brit was soon left stranded in the gravel due to a mechanical problem, which brought the red flag onto the track and saw his best time cancelled.

Fourteen drivers slipped on a fresh set of tyres in the quest for quick times. Four minutes from the end, Albuquerque moved back up to second. Shortly afterwards, Fauzy improved on his best time, putting himself out of reach. In the dying seconds, the Spa winner went faster still with a lap time of 1'18''049. Jousse, too, improved his time to take second place from Marco Bonanomi (RC Motorsport). Michael Ammermuller (Carlin Motorsport) and Alejandro NuÃ±ez were fourth and fifth respectively.

Group A

On just his second flying lap, Mikhail Aleshin (Carlin Motorsport) was the first to dip below the 1 minute 20 mark. Alvaro Barba (Draco Racing), in turn, broke the 1 minute 19 barrier. Still on their first set of fresh tyres, Alvaro Parente (Tech 1 Racing), Bertrand Baguette, Guillaume Moreau (KTR) and Yelmer Buurman (Fortec Motorsport) all mixed it with the leaders.

One by one, around the midway point of the session, the drivers stopped off at the pits for a fresh set of tyres. At this stage, Barba led with a time of 1'18''393.

Despite a mistake that saw him make a somewhat unplanned diversion into the gravel, Miguel Molina (Pons Racing) was able to continue and move up to third place. Meanwhile, Alvaro Parente set off on a rapid lap, becoming the first driver of the weekend to go under 1 minute 18. He improved slightly on his next lap to claim pole position with a time of 1'17''845.

Bertrand Baguette continued his good form to take second spot from Barba, but the Portuguese driver rose to the challenge immediately, clocking a time just 0.117 of a second slower than Parente. The positions were finalized when Salvador Duran (Interwetten.com) crashed off a minute and a half from the scheduled finish, bringing the session to a premature close. Yelmer Buurman and Miguel Molina completed the top five behind Parente, Barba and Baguette.

-credit: wsbyrenault

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