Racing Engineering - Adam Carroll (Pole) Javier Villa (19th)

Sophocles famously stated there is no success without hardship, and Racing Engineering can only agree: all of the early season difficulties suffered by the team were worthwhile if they were the price to pay for today's pole position by Adam Carroll at Silverstone.

Adam was immediately on the pace this morning at his home circuit, finishing the free practice session just one tenth off the top spot to place third, which inspired the Ulsterman to dig even deeper for qualifying. Knowing the car had good pace today, he went out and set the fastest lap of the session on his first flying lap, and then waited to see if there was any reply. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton got close, and while Nelson Piquet did just beat it he was set to lose his fastest lap for a penalty picked up in free practice, allowing Adam to watch the finish of the session from the pitwall before being congratulated by everyone in the pitlane.

Sadly for the team, Javier Villa was unable to take advantage of his teammate's good form: a combination of a different set up to Adam and it being Javi's first visit to the famous circuit meant that he was unable to match Adam's time. He will line up twenty second on the grid for tomorrow's first race.

Team principal Alfonso de Orleans was euphoric after the session, stating: I've never been more ecstatic to say that the boys did a great job! Not only the mechanics, not only John Gentry, not only Adam himself: this was a team effort. Obviously Adam did a great job; he drove a blinding lap, but John had to help him set up a good car, and the mechanics had to put it all together. I think this is a good start to the weekend, and hopefully he can now turn this pole position into a win: that's the hard bit. For Javi it was difficult because it's a new circuit for him again, and he has a very different set up to Adam, so he couldn't get any help from Adam. We're all learning, and I think, little by little, Javi will find his way."

Adam Carroll was obviously over the moon about the result, noting: "It's pretty good, isn't it! Obviously we've had a pretty rough season so far, so it's a big boost for everyone at the team and myself. We've been creeping up to the front, and I know the results haven't been there but we've been getting much better; and we've got the car up there now, which is great."

Javier Villa congratulated his teammate before adding: It was not so bad, but not good for me today. The first run was okay but after that there was too much oversteer, and then we ended up with a lot of yellow flags so we came in to change onto the second set. After that it was a bit better in the car, good in the high speed corners, but then we had understeer, which is worse than oversteer for me! For tomorrow it will be difficult: 35 laps is a lot for the tyres, but we'll see what happens."

Nelson Piquet Jr (4th)

Nelson Piquet Jr set the fastest time in today's qualifying session, but a penalty from a yellow flag infringement in this morning's free practice stripped him of his pole position time, and means that he will begin tomorrow on the second row of the grid, from fourth position.

The day had started very well for Nelson when he topped this morning's free practice session with a lap time of 1:31.012, ahead of Gimmi Bruni, Adam Carroll and Lewis Hamilton. The whole session had gone well, with Nelson consistently fast throughout the 30-minutes. However, after the session the 20-year-old was deemed to have passed a slow-moving Gimmi Bruni under a yellow flag, and the stewards ruled that he would get his fastest lap taken away in the afternoon's qualifying.

Nelson set a storming lap of 1:29.029 seven minutes before the end of qualifying, beating Adam Carroll's provisional pole time by 0.075s, but was then only able to set a time of 1:29.160, which is the time that stood for his qualifying position. It was an intense battle for the top spot, and at the end the pole time to Nelson's fourth position was divided by just 0.056s.

Tomorrow's 36-lap GP2 feature race will get underway at the earlier time than usual of 2.30pm, due to a reshuffle of the British GP2 weekend schedule.

Nelson Piquet Jr: "The position is okay but I have to say I'm really upset by the stewards decision this morning that effectively took away my pole. But there's nothing that we can do, that was their decision so we just have to get our heads down and get on with it. I did two good laps in qualifying, unfortunately the second one was not quite as good as the first and so we start fourth. We have a good car that we can still do some improvements with and the team is very capable in the race. I'm not ruling out a win here, I am very determined and I am sure it's possible for us to do it. I can't wait to get in the car tomorrow for this race."

Trident Racing - Andreas Zuber (6th) Gimmi Bruni (8th)