Vitaly Petrov kept his slim title hopes alive by claiming pole position for tomorrow's GP2 Series feature race at Monza with a dominant performance in qualifying.
The Russian's best lap of 1m30.007s came relatively early in the session, and with an advantage of almost half a second over the rest of the field, the Addax driver was able to spend the final 10 minutes on the pitwall watching the others try to catch him. No one came close – the nearest challenger was iSport's Giedo van der Garde, and even he fell 0.391sec short.
Points leader Nico Hulkenberg (ART) will start just behind Petrov in third after a relatively subdued afternoon, with fellow rookie Sergio Perez alongside him on the second row for Arden.
With most of the quick times being set in the opening minutes, it was not a session that will be remembered as one of the season's more exciting, although Ocean's Alvaro Parente did his bit to inject some late fun by grabbing too much curb at Roggia and spinning with two laps remaining.
Newcomer Johnny Cecotto Jr will make his GP2 debut with DPR from a respectable 16th on the grid.