By alley - Sep 2, 2016, 3:31 PM ET

GP2: Giovinazzi excluded from Monza qualifying

GP2 title contender Antonio Giovinazzi has been put to the back of the grid for the Monza opener due to tire pressure irregularities.

The Italian had been narrowly bested for pole by Prema teammate and championship leader Pierre Gasly. But the stewards ruled Giovinazzi's car had "insufficient tire pressures."

Arden driver Nabil Jeffri was judged to have committed the same offense and has also been put to the back, having qualified a GP2 career-best eighth.

Giovinazzi's demotion moves Artem Markelov up to the front row alongside Gasly. The Russian's third on the grid was already his best qualifying effort in the series.

REVISED STARTING GRID:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Pierre Gasly	Prema Racing	1m31.199ss	1m31.199s
2	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1m31.548ss	0.349s
3	Arthur Pic	Rapax	1m31.617ss	0.418s
4	Mitch Evans	Pertamina Campos Racing	1m31.666ss	0.467s
5	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1m31.710ss	0.511s
6	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1m31.775ss	0.576s
7	Sergey Sirotkin	ART Grand Prix	1m31.816ss	0.617s
8	Norman Nato	Racing Engineering	1m31.845ss	0.646s
9	Luca Ghiotto	Trident	1m31.855ss	0.656s
10	Oliver Rowland	MP Motorsport	1m31.864ss	0.665s
11	Raffaele Marciello	RUSSIAN TIME	1m31.986ss	0.787s
12	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1m32.037ss	0.838s
13	Marvin Kirchhofer	Carlin	1m32.172ss	0.973s
14	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1m32.192ss	0.993s
15	Sergio Canamasas	Carlin	1m32.196ss	0.997s
16	Gustav Malja	Rapax	1m32.215ss	1.016s
17	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Campos Racing	1m32.481ss	1.282s
18	Daniel de Jong	MP Motorsport	1m33.071ss	1.872s
19	Philo Paz Armand	Trident	1m33.269ss	2.070s
20	Jimmy Eriksson	Arden International	1m33.929ss	2.730s
21	Antonio Giovinazzi	Prema Racing	-	-
22	Nabil Jeffri	Arden International	-	-