Bianchi flies to Silverstone pole

Jules Bianchi has come out on top of a fierce, session-long battle for pole position this afternoon in Silverstone, setting the pace throughout to push through for the top spot in the closing minutes to edge out championship leader Pastor Maldonado and Christian Vietoris.

Jules Bianchi (FRA, ART Grand Prix) celebrates his pole position. Credit: Alastair Staley/GP2 Media

Bianchi's blistering lap of 1:39.189 handed pole position to the Frenchman by just one tenth from his rivals, but traffic played as much of a part in his good fortune as did his talent, with a number of his rivals tripping over each other in the final few minutes as they looked to improve their times.

With temperatures soaring from this morning's free practice session, and a large quantity of F1 rubber down on the track, times inevitably tumbled from the outset: Maldonado, Sergio Perez, Giedo van der Garde and Bianchi were soon swapping the top spot between them as the times tumbled, with the top seven drivers all within one tenth at the ten minute mark.

At the halfway mark only Alberto Valerio was left on track, handing the Brazilian a perfect opportunity to improve his times, but it was only to last for few minutes as his rivals were soon back out and pushing each other hard: unfortunately this meant that almost no one could get a clear lap, with many improving their sector times before finding traffic.

Bianchi was one of the few to manage to stick his sectors together, setting the target time with five minutes remaining as his rivals tripped over each other: Vietoris was the only other driver to notably improve his position as the clock ticked down to zero, although he will lose 10 spots tomorrow for a penalty picked up in Valencia.

Lining up on the timesheets behind the top three are Dani Clos, Oliver Turvey, Sam Bird, Charles Pic, Giedo van der Garde, Alberto Valerio and Sergio Perez, but with the top 14 drivers all within a second of pole there will be plenty to prove when the lights go out at the start of tomorrow's feature race.

Silverstone - Qualifying Session

Pos Driver                Team                    Time     Laps

1.  Jules Bianchi         ART Grand Prix          1:39.189  13
2.  Pastor Maldonado      Rapax                   1:39.325  14
3.  Christian Vietoris    Racing Engineering      1:39.423  14
4.  Dani Clos             Racing Engineering      1:39.653  14
5.  Oliver Turvey         iSport International    1:39.701  14
6.  Sam Bird              ART Grand Prix          1:39.756  14
7.  Charles Pic           Arden International     1:39.791  13
8.  Giedo van der Garde   Barwa Addax Team        1:39.809  13
9.  Alberto Valerio       Scuderia Coloni         1:39.811  14
10. Sergio Perez          Barwa Addax Team        1:39.894  14
11. Davide Valsecchi      iSport International    1:39.901  13
12. Jerome d'Ambrosio     Dams                    1:39.941  14
13. Luca Filippi          Super Nova Racing       1:39.984  11
14. Giacomo Ricci         DPR                     1:40.288  14
15. Michael Herck         DPR                     1:40.342  12
16. Marcus Ericsson       Super Nova Racing       1:40.511  13
17. Liuz Razia            Rapax                   1:40.559  13
18. Johnny Cecotto        Trident Racing          1:40.747  14
19. Adrian Zaugg          Trident Racing          1:40.812  15
20. Max Chilton           Ocean Racing Technology 1:41.046  14
21. Rodolfo Gonzalez      Arden International     1:41.344  13
22. Fabio Leimer          Ocean Racing Technology 1:41.548  13
23. Vladimir Arabadzhiev  Scuderia Coloni         1:41.654  16

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