Giorgio Pantano stepped up another gear in qualifying from his already astonishing turn of speed this  morning  to  put  himself  on  pole  for  tomorrow's  race  one  in  Istanbul,  easily  claiming  the  top spot from Andreas Zuber and Series returnee Adam Carroll.

The Italian's pace was untouchable as he smashed the 1:33 barrier to set a laptime of 1:32.659 on his final lap, beating his own time to put himself even further ahead of the competition, with Zuber more than two tenths off the pace and the Ulsterman another two tenths further back.

As usual the pace improved throughout the session, with the final two minutes running at a fever pitch.  Unfortunately  for  Davide  Valsecchi  the  pace  was  too  much:  the  Italian  lost  his  car  at  the end  of  the  back  straight  and  he  ploughed  straight into the tyre barrier in a nasty looking crash, although  thankfully  he  appeared  to  have  escaped  serious  damage  as  he  was  taken  to  the medical centre for a compulsory check.

The session took place under large, ominous looking clouds, with the teams receiving a forecast of rain to come: given this every driver was immediately out on track, as they looked for banker laps just in case the rain came early. Pantano was immediately on the pace, setting a 1:37.757 on  his  first  full  lap  and  then  chipped  away  at  it  each  time  around,  with  Andy  Soucek,  Romain Grosjean and Carroll keeping him honest.

Kamui  Kobayashi  was  pushing  hard  to  make  up  for  the  5  place  grid  penalty  he  picked  up  this morning  for  cross  the  finish  line  twice  after  the  session:  a  little  too  hard  it  turned  out,  and  the Japanese driver spun off before turn one and stalled in the run off area. He will line up at the back of the grid tomorrow along with Alberto Valerio, who has the same penalty, while Ben Hanley will be just ahead of them in 22nd place as a result of a 10 place penalty for causing an avoidable crash in Barcelona.

Alvaro Parente is another driver who seems unlikely to repeat his Barcelona form: after stopping on track this morning he lost the rear going into turn three and spun to a stop in the middle of the next  corner,  although  thankfully  the  marshals  were  able  to  remove  the  stricken  vehicle  without stopping the session. As time ran down the stress was starting to show: Pastor Maldonado lost the rear of his car at turn one, Luca Filippi almost lost it coming out of the pits after losing time on the weigh bridge, while Zuber almost collected a slower Bruno Senna as he tried in vain to catch Pantano's time.

But with the session at an end Valsecchi hit the wall at the end of the rear straight: a following Pantano stated that he didn't appear to have slowed at all before running deep into the tyre wall, but  thankfully Dallara's  good  work did its job and the car seems to have taken the brunt of the impact. Unfortunately,  however,  he  will  be  unable  to  take  advantage  of  his  strong  ninth  position  on  the grid  as  the  doctors  have  recommended  that  he  gets  some  rest,  despite  any  major  physical maladies.

Behind the top three Grosjean, Senna, Maldonado, Karun Chandhok, and Javier Villa will line up on the grid tomorrow: if the race pace is as good as that shown today it promises to be a classic event at the always exciting Turkish circuit.