Luca Filippi takes Bahraini pole position

Meritus Luca Filippi snatched the pole position today at Sakhir in the final round of the season clocking in a best laptime of 2:07.087. The Italian stole Charles Pic’s thunder in the last minutes of the session bettering the Arden’s racer laptime by 0.091s. Pocketing two points following this result Filippi moves up to third in the drivers’ standings.

The session was dominated by six men hungry for glory: in addition to Filippi and Pic, iSport’s Oliver Turvey and Davide Valsecchi, Coloni’s Alvaro Parente and Arden’s Javier Villa tried their best to finish the session on top, but none of them could do the perfect lap that would better Filippi’s quickest laptime.

In the early stages, Giacomo Ricci and Alexander Rossi looked set for a strong performance but they soon fell behind first Filippi and then behind Villa. However, it was Pic who claimed the top spot before mid-session ahead of his teammate, Filippi, Turvey and Valsecchi.

Pic clung onto what could have been his second pole position this season for as long as he could, but Filippi would not have it and improved a couple of minutes before the chequered flag. The Frenchman, iSport’s duo and Parente pushed hard in their last flying lap, but eventually surrendered.

Behind the top five, Villa finished ahead Jules Bianchi, Luiz Razia and Ricci. Rossi completes the Top ten. Tomorrow’s feature race will start at 3:45pm local time.