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Van der Garde claims pole

Image: Giedo van der Garde: Claimed pole position after setting early benchmark

Caterham Racing driver Giedo van der Garde tamed treacherous conditions to take pole position for the GP2 feature race at Hockenheim.

Dutchman grabs top spot in wet conditions at Hockenheim

Caterham Racing driver Giedo van der Garde tamed treacherous conditions to take pole position for the GP2 feature race at Hockenheim. The Dutchman set a best lap of 1 minute 44.022 seconds to claim top spot by just 0.012s from Britain's James Calado, with Fabio Leimer in third. The session started in steady rain but with the conditions threatening to get worse, all the drivers were straight out on track to set a banker time. As several drivers slid off, Calado, van der Garde and Davide Valsecchi swapped the fastest time between them, but the improvement was gradual with no dry line forming. Van der Garde set his best time eight minutes into the session, just as the radar screens correctly predicted no hope of improvement in the weather With the rain getting heavier no one was able to improve in the second half of the session, and the result soon became clear. Nigel Melker, Fabio Onidi, Valsecchi, Felipe Nasr, Victor Guerin, Esteban Gutiérrez and Luiz Razia completed the top 10.

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