Jolyon Palmer showed blistering pace during today's (Friday) GP2 qualifying session in Monza to record his best ever qualifying result with 11th place.

The Southwater racer, who won twice at the Italian circuit last year in F2, began the closely fought session strongly and never looked back, showing great consistency to secure P11 for Saturday's 30-lap Feature Race and on course for his maiden points finish.

Once again the 30-minute session started with the sun blazing overhead and the track temperature pushing into the 40s. As the session got underway, the 20-year-old was running as high as third before dropping to 9th spot at the halfway point and just 0.6s off the pace.

After pitting for fresh Pirelli tyres, Jolyon continued to push around the 11 corners of the 5.793km F1 favourite and began to close in on the front runners who were separated by less than half a second.

However, traffic and a yellow flag at Turn 7 in the closing stages, meant Jolyon was unable to better his time leaving him to settle for 11th and his best ever qualifying result - surpassing his P12 from Silverstone earlier this year.

Speaking afterwards Jolyon said: "I was happy with that. I had a clean run in the first half and managed to post my lap time to go P9. Unfortunately, I had traffic and yellow flags in the second run so I couldn't improve, but still P11 is good and I have a good opportunity to score some points tomorrow."

Addax racer Charles Pic secured the overall honours and will start from pole tomorrow with Luca Filippi alongside him on the front row and Fabio Leimer in third.

Jolyon is next on track at 15:40 (local time) on Saturday for the GP2 Feature Race with full coverage, including live timing, available on his official website.

Monza, GP2 qualifying results:

1. C Pic, Addax, 1:32.349s
2. L Filippi, Scuderia, +0.111s
3. F Leimer, Rapax, +0.136s
4. A Parente, Carlin, +0.251s
5. R Grosjean, DAMS, +0.281s
6. D Clos, Racing, +0.335s
7. C Vietoris, Racing, +0.378s
8. A Carroll, Super Nova, +0.412s
9. S Bird, iSport, +0.452s
11. J Palmer, Arden International, +0.499s