Piquet takes pole in Germany
Piquet, who had only two flying laps in this morning's free practice after a problem left him on the side of the track, spoilt Franck Perera's party after the Frenchman looked to have done enough to claim his first GP2 pole position until the dying minutes of the session.
Starting tomorrow's race from the second row will be Lewis Hamilton, who is aiming to put his disappointing Imola weekend behind him, and Hiroki Yoshimoto, who will be hoping to make his second podium visit in as many races.
Jose Maria Lopez lead the field onto the track, and in the opening laps he and Hamilton swapped fastest times on each circuit before Perera set what looked to be an unbeatable time of 1:41.241 six minutes into the session.
Piquet started the session sedately but built up to the time, taking second place off Hamilton before pitting for new tires and one last, successful, charge.
Hamilton almost put himself off track in his efforts to take his first pole when he dived up the inside of Yoshimoto at the chicane: he bounced off the curb and spun, lightly tapping the Japanese driver as he went, but the Briton caught his car and was able to get back on track.
As expected the tricky Nurburgring layout heavily penalized even the smallest mistakes: with just one second separating the first 16 drivers and two seconds covering 24 cars, any error was always going to be costly.
Nonetheless the blistering pace meant that every driver in the field was inside of last year's pole time of 1:43.862, set by Giorgio Pantano.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Piquet Jr Piquet Sports 1:40.799 11
2. Perera DAMS 1:41.241 + 0.442 14
3. Hamilton ART Grand Prix 1:41.325 + 0.526 10
4. Yoshimoto BCN Competicion 1:41.406 + 0.607 9
5. Lopez Super Nova International 1:41.471 + 0.672 12
6. Premat ART Grand Prix 1:41.478 + 0.679 10
7. Carroll Racing Engineering 1:41.576 + 0.777 12
8. Lapierre Arden International Ltd 1:41.622 + 0.823 11
9. Viso iSport International 1:41.664 + 0.865 13
10. Glock BCN Competicion 1:41.671 + 0.872 13
11. Valles Campos Racing 1:41.690 + 0.891 11
12. Ammermueller Arden International Ltd 1:41.768 + 0.969 10
13. Piccione DPR 1:41.769 + 0.970 10
14. Bruni Trident Racing 1:41.770 + 0.971 11
15. Zuber Trident Racing 1:41.814 + 1.015 13
16. Gommendy iSport International 1:41.841 + 1.042 13
17. Porteiro Campos Racing 1:41.913 + 1.114 14
18. Negrao Piquet Sports 1:42.029 + 1.230 12
19. Monfardini DAMS 1:42.096 + 1.297 11
20. Pla DPR 1:42.162 + 1.363 9
21. Di Grassi Durango 1:42.192 + 1.393 12
22. Hernandez Durango 1:42.513 + 1.714 11
23. Filippi FMS International 1:42.654 + 1.855 14
24. Villa Racing Engineering 1:42.784 + 1.985 10
25. Fauzy Super Nova International 1:43.151 + 2.352 14
26. Tahinci FMS International 1:43.812 + 3.013 10