UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 Round 10: Belgium

Di Grassi cuts lead

The penultimate round of the 2007 championship was held at the historic Spa circuit in Belgium. After nine of the eleven rounds Timo Glock is now in touching distance of winning the title for iSport. He is now eleven points clear of ART driver Lucas Di Grassi. Third is currently jointly held by Campos driver Giorgio Pantano and Super Nova driver Luca Fillippi with Adam Carroll not far behind for FMS.

This week’s usual pre-race driver change involves Christian Bakkerud returning to replace Olivier Pla at DPR after recovering from the injury that kept him out of Italian round.

Practise saw a surprise return to form for Bruno Senna, who topped the session, over half a second faster than his closest rival. His closest rival was Fillippi in second with Di Grassi third as the only other man within six-tenths of Senna.

Qualifying saw another shock as Nicolas Lapierre put his DAMS car on pole for the first time this season. His time was just 0.011 seconds clear of Fillippi who will join him on the front row. Senna continued his good form from the practise session and will start third. The two title contenders start fourth and sixth, with Di Grassi ahead of Glock, split by Glock’s team-mate Andres Zuber.

The shocks kept coming on Saturday as Lapierre won the sprint race from pole position in a race that saw Di Grassi cut into Glock’s points lead.

The start was a disaster for iSport as both cars were left stranded on the grid. They were not alone as Senna and Kazuki Nakijima in the second DAMS also stalled.

This helped Carroll jump from seventh on the grid to third as they ran to Eau Rouge for the first time. He was initially fourth but a clash between Fillippi and Di Grassi sent the Italian into the huge run off area with a heavily flat spotted tyre.

Pantano had a bad race in his battle with Fillippi over third in the standings are retiring half way round the opening lap with a clutch problem.

The first man to pit was Mike Conway for Super Nova as he was stuck at the back of a queue of cars headed by Campos driver Vitaly Petrov. Carroll and Fillippi both stopped on lap six with Carroll changing all four tyres compared to Fillippi only changing two, so the Italian jumped Carroll.

Lapierre and Di Grassi were in next lap, Lapierre was able to maintain his lead over Di Grassi and when both cars came out just ahead of Fillippi he maintained the lead of those who had already stopped.

Di Grassi seamed unhappy with his new tyres and was quickly left behind by Lapierre and came under pressure from Fillippi. It was not long before Fillippi was through into second place and it would not belong before Carroll was though as well pushing Di Grassi down to fourth.

At the back of the pace Glock, Zuber, Senna and Nakijima were showing great pace but after stalling on the grid none had any hope of getting any points however they were in a four-way battle for fastest lap.

Senna was soon removed from the equation after getting well wide at turn thirteen, slamming sideways into the wall and retirement on lap eleven. Glock was soon setting a string of fastest laps and, when Nakajima stopped on track a few laps later, it looked like he was going to be able to salvage a point.

At the front Lapierre was driving away from Fillippi who was more concerned with Carroll behind him. With just six laps left Carroll just touched the inside kerb on the long run up to the new Bus Stop, snapping himself into a spin and the wall nearby, undoing all the good work he'd done to put himself in a podium position.

Carroll’s retirement promoted Di Grassi into third, where he finished behind the winner Lapierre and second place Fillippi. Fourth place went to Petrov, fifth was Conway.

Sixth place went to Andy Soucek after Xandi Negrao had a mechanical problem in his Minardi Piquet Sports car on the last lap. The points scored by are the first point for DPR this season.

Completing the points were Karun Chandhok of Durango in seventh and Ho-pin Tung eighth for BCN. The fastest lap eventually went to Glock with a time of 1:58.999 to minimize the damage Di Grassi did to his championship lead.

The shocks just kept coming on Sunday as Chandhok took his first ever GP2 win, and the first for his Durango team since the 2005 season.

Even before the race started the drama began with the retirement of championship leader Glock on the installation lap on the way to the dummy grid. Ricardo Risatti spun in his Trident after putting his wheels on the grass as he circulated, which threw his car straight into the side pod of the iSport vehicle. Glock had no chance to avoid him and was pushed straight into the wall, damaging the front of his car.

When the race finally started Tung from pole made a bad start allowing Soucek from third to take the lead followed by Chandhok. Di Grassi and Villa followed them through to push Tung down to fifth on the run to Eau Rouge for the first time.

Conway was another driver very slow off the line from fourth and with Lapierre completely stalling in eighth the field was very bunched up into the tight turn one. BCN driver Markus Niemela was a little too eager to get through the turn, knocking Adrian Zaugg out of the race as he tried to get by.

The Super Nova pair on the move, with Fillippi passing Petrov to take sixth and Conway doing the same on the next lap to take seventh. At the front Chandhok was pressuring Soucek for the lead but the former Spanish Formula Three champion held his nerve and retained the lead.

Villa was given a drive through penalty for a jump start which removed him from fifth place, promoting Fillippi to fifth and Conway into the points.

On lap eleven Chandhok made his move on Soucek and was able to pass around the outside. He was on the pace immediately and was over a second ahead after just one lap.
The only other battle of any importance was between the Super Nova cars for fifth and sixth places. Conway was past when Italian ran too deep at the end of the straight as Conway zipped inside and then Fillippi would lose another place next lap when Carroll past him to take the final point.

Chandhok eventually won by 1.5 seconds from Soucek. Di Grassi was third to further cut Glock’s lead, Tung was fourth with Conway fifth and Carroll sixth. The fastest lap went to Lapierre who salvaged a point despite his stall.

With just the standalone race in Valencia to go in two weeks, Glock still leads the championship but his lead is now down to just two points. He has 79 points to Di Grassi’s 77. Third is now held by solely Fillippi after a bad weekend for Pantano. Fillippi leads his countryman by nine points in the battle for the position.

In this report I have mentioned that this was a weekend of shocks, however the biggest shock this weekend has rocked the Motorsport world to its core, the death of former WRC champion and legend Colin McRae in a helicopter crash on Saturday.

Whatever form of Motorsport you follow you will know the name Colin McRae means success and greatness and he will be sadly missed by all fans of the World Rally Championship and beyond.

R.I.P Colin.

Written: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:41:07