Pastor Maldonado delivered on his reputation as a street race specialist by dominating today's opening GP2 practice session in Monaco. The Rapax driver topped the times with a best lap of 1m20.476sec, which not only put him 0.441sec clear of nearest rival Sergio Perez's Barwa Addax car, but would also have put him ahead of three cars in this morning's first F1 practice session.

Racing Engineering's Christian Vietoris finished third fastest ahead of teammate Dani Clos, with reigning GP2 Asia Series champion Davide Valsecchi (iSport) and Addax's Giedo van der Garde another couple of tenths farther back.

The session passed almost without incident, with Coloni's Vladimir Arabadzhiev being the only driver to take an early shower after clipping the barriers with eight minutes remaining, although Ocean Racing's Max Chilton had cause to be thankful for the escape road at Turn 1 after locking up badly and overshooting the corner late in the session.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Pastor Maldonado     Rapax               1m20.476s
 2.  Sergio Perez         Barwa Addax         1m20.917s  + 0.441s
 3.  Christian Vietoris   Racing Engineering  1m20.999s  + 0.523s
 4.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering  1m21.272s  + 0.796s
 5.  Davide Valsecchi     iSport              1m21.531s  + 1.055s
 6.  Giedo van der Garde  Barwa Addax         1m21.540s  + 1.064s
 7.  Jules Bianchi        ART                 1m22.036s  + 1.560s
 8.  Luiz Razia           Rapax               1m22.096s  + 1.620s
 9.  Oliver Turvey        iSport              1m22.132s  + 1.656s
10.  Fabio Leimer         Ocean               1m22.164s  + 1.688s
11.  Alberto Valerio      Coloni              1m22.165s  + 1.689s
12.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                1m22.288s  + 1.812s
13.  Michael Herck        DPR                 1m22.327s  + 1.851s
14.  Johnny Cecotto       Trident             1m22.399s  + 1.923s
15.  Sam Bird             ART                 1m22.503s  + 2.027s
16.  Max Chilton          Ocean               1m22.576s  + 2.100s
17.  Ho-Pin Tung          DAMS                1m22.578s  + 2.102s
18.  Giacomo Ricci        DPR                 1m22.622s  + 2.146s
19.  Marcus Ericsson      Super Nova          1m23.059s  + 2.583s
20.  Charles Pic          Arden               1m23.246s  + 2.770s
21.  Josef Kral           Super Nova          1m23.657s  + 3.181s
22.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Arden               1m23.907s  + 3.431s
23.  Adrian Zaugg         Trident             1m24.249s  + 3.773s
24.  Vlado Arabadjiev     Coloni              1m24.770s  + 4.294s