My Qi-Meritus.Mahara qualify 10th and 22th in Sepang

The Friday morning free session brought Alvaro Parente the sixth fastest time of 1.46.912 after six laps despite flat spotting the front left tyre under heavy braking, while Marco Bonanomi suffered from problems with his throttle which prevented him completing even a recce lap.

Qualifying remained dry despite threats of rain and saw Parente take 10th place with 1 min 45.816 and Bonanomi 22nd with 1.46.315.

Parente said: "I expected better, but at the end everything went well. The free practice session was a bit short because I had to flat-spot a tyre braking very hard after someone spun suddenly in front of me. We worked on some details to adapt the car for the qualifying session. I was eighth fastest with 1.46.030 after six laps and improved that to 1.45.816 to finish 10th on the grid for tomorrow's race."

Bonanomi said: "I am simply not happy. Even considering that I only completed one lap in the morning before I encountered the throttle problem, it's a thin excuse. The Mecachrome engineers and my team fixed that in record time before qualifying and my first run. My
first run yielded 1.49.558 and gave me a feel for the track. I knew there was room to improve, and worked down to 1.46.315, but I simply did not have enough time to achieve a
better result. I am confident with the setup of the car and hope to have a good race."

Peter Thompson: "There was a lot of work to do after this morning's problem on Marco's car. Alvaro did a good job for his first ever qualifying session with the team. He can score points tomorrow. Even starting down on the grid, there is no reason why Marco should not have a good race now that we have resolved his issues."

Race 1  Saturday 12pm 33 laps or 75 minutes

Race 2  Sunday 13.30- 14.20 22 laps or 45 minutes

Qualifying times:
Al Fardhan 1.46.265
Bonanomi 1.46.315
Buurman 1.45.954
Cristani 1.46.108
d'Ambrosio 1.45.410
Dalle Stelle 1.49.857
Gonzales 1.46.053
Herck 1.46.259
Jakes 1.45.527
K Nai Chia Chen 1.49.642
Kamui Kobayashi 1.45.577
Maldonado  1.45.755
Nunes 1.45.522
ortara 1.46.184
Parente 1.45.816
Perez 1.46.169
Petrov 1.45.720
Razia 1.45.989
Ricci 1.46.604
Rigone 1.45.978
Rodrigues 1.45.767
Texeira 1.47.838
Valsecchi 1.45.748
Van der Garde 1.46.105
Villa 1.45.629
Yamamoto 1.46.087