Photo: Alastair Staley/GP2 Series Media Service
Carlin’s Jolyon Palmer was quickest in the Friday practice session for the GP2 round at Monza, beating out Swiss driver Fabio Leimer by 0.003s.
The 30-minute session was quite full of incidents and other on-track mishaps, which cost the field precious practice time. Early on, a spin in Parabolica from Johnny Cecotto, Jr. led to the session being red-flagged for several minutes, while, at the checkered flag, Marcus Ericsson and Sergio Canamasas came to a halt in different parts of the track, prompting the yellow flags to come out and prevent the drivers from setting quick laps.
As Palmer and Leimer were the obvious pace-setters for most of the sessions, they unsurprisingly remained in the first two positions when the timer ran out. Russian Time’s Sam Bird was the best of the rest in third, with his teammate Tom Dillmann taking fifth behind Stephane Richelmi.
Championship leader Stefano Coletti ended up sixth on the timesheets, despite making contact with Cecotto mid-session that resulted in a damaged front wing for the Monegasque and is scheduled to be investigated after the session.
Julian Leal took seventh, ahead of Coletti’s teammate Simon Trummer, with Ericsson and Alexander Rossi rounding out the top ten.
Session results
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Jolyon Palmer | Carlin | 1:32.120 | 12 | |
| 2 | Fabio Leimer | Racing Engineering | 1:32.123 | +0.003 | 11 |
| 3 | Sam Bird | Russian Time | 1:32.351 | +0.231 | 11 |
| 4 | Stephane Richelmi | DAMS | 1:32.501 | +0.381 | 13 |
| 5 | Tom Dillmann | Russian Time | 1:32.502 | +0.382 | 10 |
| 6 | Stefano Coletti | Rapax | 1:32.532 | +0.412 | 12 |
| 7 | Julian Leal | Racing Engineering | 1:32.586 | +0.466 | 11 |
| 8 | Simon Trummer | Rapax | 1:32.634 | +0.514 | 13 |
| 9 | Marcus Ericsson | DAMS | 1:32.711 | +0.591 | 12 |
| 10 | Alexander Rossi | Caterham Racing | 1:32.743 | +0.623 | 12 |
| 11 | James Calado | ART Grand Prix | 1:32.863 | +0.743 | 13 |
| 12 | Adrian Quaife-Hobbs | Hilmer Motorsport | 1:32.877 | +0.757 | 13 |
| 13 | Mitchell Evans | Arden International | 1:32.951 | +0.831 | 12 |
| 14 | Dani Clos | MP Motorsport | 1:32.966 | +0.846 | 11 |
| 15 | Felipe Nasr | Carlin | 1:33.029 | +0.909 | 12 |
| 16 | Jake Rosenzweig | Barwa Addax Team | 1:33.045 | +0.925 | 11 |
| 17 | Jon Lancaster | Hilmer Motorsport | 1:33.067 | +0.947 | 12 |
| 18 | Daniel Abt | ART Grand Prix | 1:33.092 | +0.972 | 13 |
| 19 | Rio Haryanto | Barwa Addax Team | 1:33.172 | +1.052 | 10 |
| 20 | Nathanael Berthon | Trident Racing | 1:33.174 | +1.054 | 13 |
| 21 | Sergio Canamasas | Caterham Racing | 1:33.369 | +1.249 | 11 |
| 22 | Johnny Cecotto | Arden International | 1:33.389 | +1.269 | 11 |
| 23 | Daniel de Jong | MP Motorsport | 1:33.447 | +1.327 | 12 |
| 24 | Vittorio Ghirelli | Venezuela GP Lazarus | 1:33.465 | +1.345 | 13 |
| 25 | Rene Binder | Venezuela GP Lazarus | 1:33.943 | +1.823 | 12 |
| 26 | Sergio Campana | Trident Racing | 1:34.448 | +2.328 | 12 |