Singapore: Filippi and Scuderia Coloni storm to pole in night qualifying

Scuderia Coloni and Luca Filippi keep producing magic together: the all-italian pair stormed the GP2 pack to take an amazing pole position in the Singapore night Qualifying session.

Luca and his supersoft-shod Dallara boasted a dominating performance and posted a 1’59”444 that was too quick for the rest of the field. Filippi beated 2nd placed Chilton by 0.05 and Gutierrez was the only other driver to get under the 2 minutes mark, even if half a second adrift from Luca’s pole time.

Luca Filippi

Photo by: GP2 Media Service

The others were further behind, with gaps that are very close to the 1” mark. Filippi’s pole is particularly important on a street track, where overtaking should prove particularly difficult.

Meanwhile, Fabio Onidi ended the session in 20th place with a 2’01”656. The Italian driver had closed the morning practice in P11, but considering that he has to serve a ten places penalty on tomorrow’s grid (following the Race 2 crash in Monza) the team decided to save one set of new tyres for the races, in order to boost Fabio’s recovery chances.

Paolo Coloni: “This pole position has a great meaning: on a track that is new to all the teams everybody had to start from a clean sheet, and the ability in finding the right set-up straight out of the box became crucial. This was even more true after that rain washed the morning session, giving us no track time on the dry.

All the work we did at home with our engineers and the simulator proved right, and Luca did an amazing job making the most of the car. Fabio could have started in the top ten, but considering that he has that big ten place penalty we decided for a conservative strategy, saving one set of tyres for the race. We’re confident that he will have the pace to recover”.

Source: Scuderia Coloni