Romain Grosjean continued the strong form he has shown throughout GP2 Asia testing by claiming pole position for the Feature race at the inaugural round at the Dubai Autodrome.
The Frenchman has shared top spot on almost every day of testing at the desert venue, and confirmed that he and ART Grand Prix will be a frontrunner in the series by clocking a lap of 1min 21.760secs to head the 26-car field in the first qualifying session of the new season. Qualifying, however, proved to be a lot closer fought that the morning's truncated practice session, with just 0.049secs separating the pole man from second placed Bruno Senna.
“Once again, the team did a fantastic job," Grosjean commented, "I was going for pole and I am very happy that I could achieve it. For this afternoon's race, I know that Senna is more experienced than I am and I'm also here to learn, but I have a real shot at winning and I won't miss the opportunity.”
Like Grosjean, Senna made his bid for pole in the final five minutes of the session, but came up fractionally short of his French rival as iSport again showed that it will be a force. The Brazilian, however, reckoned that he could have been faster still had it not been for traffic.
“On my fastest lap, Fauzy unfortunately blocked me, so then I had just one last lap to do the job," he sighed, "I am a little disappointed of course, but I will still start from the front row. The level of experience that I have compared to Grosjean may give me a little bit of an edge, but you never know what could happen in the first corner.”
Morning practice pacesetter Andy Soucek had to settle for third having initially been out front in qualifying, but remains confident of his chances in the Feature race.
“This morning, we changed the set up and we improved the performance of the car a lot," the Spaniard revealed, "In free practice, I was really quick and I was expecting to fight for pole position. In the last five minutes of the session, however, I lost it to Senna and to Grosjean, but we have the pace and I usually make good starts. I will fight for the win.”
![Romain Grosjean - ART Grand Prix [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/404017.jpg)
