Giorgio Pantano has vowed to go for the win today at Magny Cours in France after putting his Racing Engineering-run car third on the grid.
Pantano, who made an excellent start to the day and was fourth fastest in the morning's practice, continued his excellent run in the afternoon and at the end of qualifying he had set the third quickest time in his Repsol/Telefónica supported machine.
His fastest lap of 1 minute 22.301 seconds was only 0.051seconds away from the pole position time and in the end while he was quickest in the first two sectors a small mistake in the final sector cost him top spot.
"I am trying to do the best I can everywhere to put all my best sectors in one lap. In the last lap I was heading for pole, but I couldn't take the last corner perfect," he reflected.
"In the end I am 0.051 seconds off pole, which disturbs me a lot, but I know that we have a fast car and I will go for the win tomorrow."
Javier Villa meanwhile didn't have such a good result and while he was third fastest in practice - despite crashing on lap 6 - he never found the sweet spot in the afternoon.
He will consequently line up right at the bottom end of the pack, outside the top 20 on a 1m 23.998s – over a second off his team-mate.
"I don't really know what has happened," said Villa. "In free practice we went really, really quick. Now in qualifying the track was very different as it was much warmer. The set-up we had was not the perfect one for these conditions.
"We have to now check everything as we don't want to be in the same situation in case we encounter the same conditions tomorrow."
Team boss Alfonso de Orleans Borbon had mixed feelings: "A strange qualifying for us. Giorgio did a fantastic job and I am sure he would have had pole without his little error in the last corner. On the other hand, after Javi's fantastic time this morning, it's a pity that he wasn't able to replicate this in qualifying.
![Giorgio Pantano - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/438549.jpg)
