Nurburgring: Qualifying one report

First pole for Aleshin

Mikhail Aleshin (Carlin Motorsport) bagged his first ever pole position in World Series Formula Renault 3.5 here at the Nurburgring. The Russian will be joined on the front row for this afternoon's race by Alvaro Parente (Victory Engineering).

Group A

The racing line was mainly dry at the start of the session. All the drivers opted for slicks as they made their way onto the track.

Alx Danielsson (Comtec Racing), the quickest man in yesterday's free practice, was quick again today, regularly improving the best time until five minutes from the end. But then Alvaro Parente (Victory Engineering) sneaked ahead of him, by a mere 69/1000ths.

Pastor Maldonado (Draco Multiracing USA) lay just behind these two, 2/10ths off the leader, but the session came under full yellow with three minutes left, after Carlos Iaconelli went off.

The qualifying standings remained as there were, with Parente, Danielsson and Maldonado occupying the top three spots. Christian Montanari (Prema Power Team) and Eric Salignon (Interwetten.com) completed the top 5.

Group B

In the 8th minute of the group B session, Mikhail Aleshin (Carlin Motorsport) beat Parente's time with a 1'45''573 lap, a time which would ultimately secure him pole position. Ryo Fukuda (Tech 1 Racing) confirmed the form he had shown in free practice by taking the provisional second best time overall.

Just before the session's halfway stage, Borja Garcia (RC Motorsport) squeezed in between Aleshin and Fukuda. Ben Hanley (Cram Competition) then moved up into the leading group, taking the 3rd best time.

It was then the turn of Milos Pavlovic (Eurointernational) and Sean McIntosh (KTR) to improve their times, moving up to 4th and 5th places respectively. Ryo Fukuda was thus pushed back from 4th to 6th spot, for the sake of 8/1000ths!

Andy Soucek (Interwetten.com) produced the below par performance of the day. His worst qualifying result of the season left him back in 8th spot.

Mikhail Aleshin: "I paid attention to the state of the track on my out lap. I saw that there was a little gutter across the chicane and that most of the drivers were slowing down to go through it. But I didn't ease off and maybe that's what made the difference."

Alvaro Parente: "I'm going to be on the front row for the first time this season. It's good because it means that I'm in an ideal position to pick up serious points this afternoon. The pole position was within my reach but I made a minor error in one of the chicanes."

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