Piquet Sports' Marco Bonanomi showed no ill effects of his dash from Barcelona, where he had topped the times on day one of the latest World Series by Renault group test. The Italian worked his way up to speed in practice, before leaping up to fourth on the grid in the qualifying session.
Hiroki Yoshimoto completed the top five, followed by Yelmer Buurman, Vitaly Petrov, Sébastien Buemi, Luca Filippi and Davide Valsecchi. Out of the six drivers who can still fight for second and third in the championship, only Adrian Valles and Fairuz Fauzy failed to qualify in the top ten, the Spaniard ending up 18th, just one place in front of his Malaysian rival.
Jason Tahinci again transcended expectation and, although he could not match the seventh place he took in practice, will line up eleventh on the grid. That puts the Turk, whose summer plans remain unclear, ahead of such talents as Karun Chandhok - who slipped to 13th after being fourth in practice - and Ben Hanley, whose stellar debut at Sentul appears a distant memory as he lines up 21st.
That puts the Englishman just one spot ahead of Grosjean's team-mate, Stephen Jelley, who will contest just one race this weekend, owing to other commitments. The 25-year old, who signed with Team RAC to contest the British Touring Car Championship this season, will take part in Friday's feature race in Dubai before flying back to the UK in time for BTCC qualifying at Rockingham on Saturday afternoon.
Jelley qualified three positions ahead of Roldan Rodriguez, who made a quiet return in place of the injured Michael Herck at FMS International. The Spaniard, however, will not be confined to the back row, as both Hanley and Diego Nunes have to carry penalties from the Bahrain weekend. The Briton received a ten-place penalty for his move on Bonanomi and drops to 26th and last, while Nunes, who was the slowest qualifier anyway, received a similar punishment for his clash with Chandhok.
![Romain Grosjean - ART Grand Prix [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/404215.jpg)
