Piquet driver Roldan Rodriguez took pole position for the first race of the 2008/09 GP2 Asia series at Shanghai, ahead of favourite Kamui Kobayashi for Dams. Super Nova’s Javi Villa was third quickest, with ART’s Sakon Yamamoto lining up fourth.

Lewis Hamilton was quickest in both F1 practice sessions at Shanghai yesterday. Championship rival Felipe Massa was second quickest in the morning session and sixth quickest in the afternoon. Hamilton was the only driver to dip below 1m36s in either session.
F3 Euroseries champion Nico Hülkenberg will not contest this year’s Macau Grand Prix, as it clashes with GP2 testing at Paul Ricard.

“Macau is an amazing event, a great place and I enjoyed it a lot last year, so it’s a shame not to be going back this year,” he told this week’s Autosport magazine. “But I need to concentrate on GP2 now for next year.”

Hülkenberg will continue with ART in GP2, the team he took the Euroseries title with.