Romain Grosjean's efforts to get his GP2 title campaign back on track received a boost during qualifying at Silverstone this afternoon when he took pole for tomorrow's feature race.
The Frenchman first moved to the top of the timesheets with a 1m26.535s effort in the opening minutes, but was immediately overhauled by his Barwa Addax teammate Vitaly Petrov. Grosjean took the place back with his next flying lap only to immediately lose it again, this time to Piquet GP's Alberto Valerio. That time stood until the final five minutes, when Grosjean was able to find enough clear air to bang out a 1m25.899s, and this time it was enough to keep him on top.
Valerio held on for second ahead of Ocean's Alvaro Parente and DAMS' Jerome D'Ambrosio, who was on target for a front row start until he got caught in traffic during the final sector. Racing Engineering's Lucas di Grassi will start from fifth, with Petrov completing the third row.
As with this morning's practice session there were a few on-track incidents to liven things up, the most noteworthy being the two Trident entries managing to hit each other on their out-lap.
Davide Rigon was spun around in the clash but was able to continue, while teammate Ricardo Teixeira was forced to watch from the sidelines after breaking his front wing. Arden's Sergio Perez and Piquet's Roldan Rodriguez also stopped on the side of the track before completing a lap.