Luca Filippi claimed his first GP2 pole since the 2007 season with a late quick lap at Sakhir today.
After a close early battle for the provisional top spot, it looked like Arden's Charles Pic was set to repeat his Abu Dhabi pole position. The Frenchman's 2m07.178sec lap after 13 minutes was almost half a second quicker than the previous best at the time, and none of his rivals were able to beat it until the closing moments – when Meritus driver Filippi slipped ahead by 0.091sec.
Arden had held a 1-2 with Pic and Javier Villa for some time, but in the final flurry of quick laps iSport's Oliver Turvey and Davide Valsecchi and Coloni's Alvaro Parente pushed the Spaniard back to sixth. Jules Bianchi was only seventh in the best of the ART cars, ahead of returnee Luiz Razia (Rapax).
DPR's Giacomo Ricci continued his recent good form with ninth, while America's Alexander Rossi was 10th in the second Meritus entry, but is set to drop 10 places when his penalty for pushing Fabio Leimer off the road in the previous race is applied.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap
1. Luca Filippi Meritus 2m07.087s
2. Charles Pic Arden 2m07.178s + 0.091s
3. Oliver Turvey iSport 2m07.237s + 0.150s
4. Davide Valsecchi iSport 2m07.243s + 0.156s
5. Alvaro Parente Coloni 2m07.413s + 0.326s
6. Javier Villa Arden 2m07.432s + 0.345s
7. Jules Bianchi ART 2m07.710s + 0.623s
8. Luiz Razia Rapax 2m07.772s + 0.685s
9. Giacomo Ricci DPR 2m07.892s + 0.805s
10. Alexander Rossi Meritus 2m08.027s + 0.940s
11. Sam Bird ART 2m08.339s + 1.252s
12. Fabio Leimer Ocean 2m08.428s + 1.341s
13. Dani Clos Trident 2m08.467s + 1.380s
14. Michael Herck DPR 2m08.634s + 1.547s
15. Christian Vietoris DAMS 2m08.678s + 1.591s
16. Max Chilton Addax 2m08.692s + 1.605s
17. Yelmer Buurman Ocean 2m08.778s + 1.691s
18. Edoardo Piscopo DAMS 2m08.858s + 1.771s
19. Vladimir Arabadzhiev Rapax 2m08.863s + 1.776s
20. Josef Kral Super Nova 2m09.454s + 2.367s
21. Will Bratt Coloni 2m09.611s + 2.524s
22. Rodolfo Gonzalez Addax 2m09.648s + 2.561s
23. Jake Rosenzweig Super Nova 2m09.904s + 2.817s
24. Plamen Kralev Trident 2m12.975s + 5.888s