Marcus Ericsson has been stripped of his Abu Dhabi GP2 pole position after stewards ruled that he exceeded track limits on his best qualifying lap.
The decision to penalise the DAMS driver promotes Caterham’s Alexander Rossi to his first pole position in the category.
It also moves title contender Sam Bird to a front row starting position as he bids to overhaul Fabio Leimer’s seven-point series lead.
Leimer will now start fourth, behind Jolyon Palmer, with Tom Dillmann and Johnny Cecotto Jr rounding out the new top six.
Ericsson falls to 12th place with his second-best time.
His drop moves outside title contender Felipe Nasr up to eighth.
Stefano Coletti, the other man still in the championship fight, was only 18th quickest.
James Calado was ruled out of contention when he was given a five-place grid penalty for an incident with Dillmann in practice.
That meant he could not get the pole bonus points required to keep his title bid alive. Calado was only 14th in qualifying in any case.
Further back on the grid, Daniel Abt and Gianmarco Raimondo have both been penalised three places each for blocking Rossi and Calado respectively. The will start from the final row, with Abt starting ahead of Raimondo (who had qualified last anyway).
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Alexander Rossi Caterham 1m48.931s 2. Sam Bird Russian Time 1m49.241s +0.310s 3. Jolyon Palmer Carlin 1m49.376s +0.445s 4. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m49.485s +0.554s 5. Tom Dillmann Russian Time 1m49.672s +0.741s 6. Johnny Cecotto Jr Arden 1m49.680s +0.749s 7. Jon Lancaster Hilmer 1m49.827s +0.896s 8. Felipe Nasr Carlin 1m49.829s +0.898s 9. Stephane Richelmi DAMS 1m49.835s +0.904s 10. Dani Clos MP 1m49.846s +0.915s 11. Mitch Evans Arden 1m49.864s +0.933s 12. Marcus Ericsson DAMS 1m49.910s +0.979s 13. Sergio Canamasas Caterham 1m49.951s +1.020s 14. James Calado* ART 1m50.002s +1.071s 15. Rio Haryanto Addax 1m50.334s +1.403s 16. Nathanael Berthon Trident 1m50.446s +1.515s 17. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Hilmer 1m50.510s +1.579s 18. Stefano Coletti Rapax 1m50.534s +1.603s 19. Julian Leal Racing Engineering 1m50.553s +1.622s 20. Simon Trummer Rapax 1m50.634s +1.703s 21. Jake Rosenzweig Addax 1m50.809s +1.878s 22. Rene Binder Lazarus 1m50.884s +1.953s 23. Daniel de Jong MP 1m50.906s +1.975s 24. Daniel Abt** ART 1m50.907s +1.976s 25. Vittorio Ghirelli Lazarus 1m51.493s +2.562s 26. Gianmarco Raimondo Trident 1m52.311s +3.380s
