Jolyon Palmer will start Saturday’s GP2 Series race from pole position after topping a disrupted Singapore qualifying session, ahead of Carlin team-mate Felipe Nasr.
In the only night-time running for the series all weekend, Palmer lapped the Marina Bay track in 1m53.600s, just over a quarter of a second faster than Nasr could manage.
Championship leader Fabio Leimer will start third for Racing Engineering. He had provisional pole halfway through the session, but had nothing to respond to the Carlin cars despite a brave late effort.
Although Leimer missed out on the four points for pole, he will be delighted to be seven places ahead of main title rival Sam Bird, who could only manage 10th fastest time in his Russian Time machine.
Bird was plagued by Johnny Cecotto Jr in his efforts at the end of the session, as the Venezuelan appeared to get in his way on numerous occasions.
The session was disrupted by a number of incidents, the first being Mitch Evans piling into the Tecpro barrier at Turn 10 when he locked up and went off in his Arden car. He will need dispensation to start as he had failed to set a representative lap time.
Just after James Calado clipped a wall, his ART team-mate Daniel Abt stopped trackside with no power.
Then series newcomer Gianmarco Raimondo shunted at the Marina Bay grandstand bend, smashing his Trident car’s right-front corner against the barrier. That caused a red flag with 14 minutes to go.
After the mayhem was cleared, Alexander Rossi qualified fourth for Caterham, ahead of Stephane Richelmi, Tom Dillmann (who was lucky to rejoin after overshooting a corner), Sergio Canamasas and Calado.
Erstwhile points leader Stefano Coletti, now third in the standings, was 11th fastest.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Jolyon Palmer Carlin 1m53.600s 2. Felipe Nasr Carlin 1m53.852s +0.252s 3. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m53.870s +0.270s 4. Alexander Rossi Caterham 1m54.285s +0.685s 5. Stephane Richelmi DAMS 1m54.403s +0.803s 6. Tom Dillmann Russian Time 1m54.695s +1.095s 7. Sergio Canamasas Caterham 1m54.812s +1.212s 8. James Calado ART 1m54.822s +1.222s 9. Marcus Ericsson DAMS 1m54.987s +1.387s 10. Sam Bird Russian Time 1m55.163s +1.563s 11. Stefano Coletti Rapax 1m55.251s +1.651s 12. Julian Leal Racing Engineering 1m55.268s +1.668s 13. Nathanael Berthon Trident 1m55.567s +1.967s 14. Johnny Cecotto Jr Arden 1m55.683s +2.083s 15. Dani Clos MP 1m55.784s +2.184s 16. Rene Binder Lazarus 1m55.880s +2.280s 17. Daniel Abt ART 1m56.048s +2.448s 18. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Hilmer 1m56.057s +2.457s 19. Jake Rosenzweig Addax 1m56.114s +2.514s 20. Jon Lancaster Hilmer 1m56.210s +2.610s 21. Vittorio Ghirelli Lazarus 1m56.333s +2.733s 22. Rio Haryanto Addax 1m56.753s +3.153s 23. Simon Trummer Rapax 1m57.153s +3.553s 24. Daniel de Jong MP 1m57.560s +3.960s 25. Gianmarco Raimondo Trident 1m57.837s +4.237s 26. Mitch Evans Arden 2m29.069s +35.469s
