UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 Round 11: Valencia

Glock takes the title

The final round of the 2007 GP2 series was held in Valencia, after ten rounds the gap at the top of championship is just two points with iSport’s Timo Glock leading ART’s Lucas Di Grassi 79 points to 77. The all Italian battle for third is nine points with Super Novas Luca Fillippi leading Campos’s Giorgio Pantano.

There were three driver changes for this final round. Adrian Zaugg is busy racing for South Africa in the opening round of A1GP in Zandvoort. He is replaced by Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo Risatti has been replaced by Sergio Hernandez as the substitute driver at Trident.

The other driver change is the return of Mikhail Aleshin at ART. Aleshin raced for the team in Spain and now replaces Sebastien Buemi, who will be competing in the Formula Three Euroseries, where he can still become champion.

With no Formula One to accommodate this weekend GP2 were able to alter their schedule. The revised schedule saw no running on Friday, with practice and qualifying moved to Saturday morning.

In that Saturday morning practice session it was the DAMS team that dominated with Nicolas Lapierre heading the times with teammate Kazuki Nakijima in second place just 0.086 seconds behind. Third place, although almost two-tenths down, was Xandi Negrao of Minardi Piquet Sports. Glock was fastest of the championship contenders, ending the session in sixth place with Di Grassi down in tenth.

The DAMS domination continued in qualifying as Nakijima set the fastest time. Second place went to Glock giving him the early advantage over Di Grassi. Third place went to Fillippi. Di Grassi struggled and could only manage to start seventh just under three-tenths of a second slower than Glock. The returnees had a difficult time of it. Hernandez starts twentieth, Aleshin is twenty-third and Albuquerque is on the back row in twenty-fifth.

Vitaly Petrov won his first GP2 race on Saturday and was followed home by his Campos team-mate Giorgio Pantano. In damp conditions Petrov managed to stay on track, unlike Di Grassi who spun into retirement virtually handing the title to Glock.

With rain threatening the teams and drivers had a tough decision to make over tyres. Glock and Fillippi elected to start the race on wets, while Petrov, Pantano and Nakijima gambled on taking slicks.

Nakijima pulled easily away from the grid in first after Glock and Fillippi bogged down. Lapierre was also slow away from fourth and was immediately tagged by a fast charging Di Grassi, eliminating the Frenchman from the race. The fastest starter was Rodriquez who slipped through into the lead after finding a short cut.

After the first lap the rain had stopped. The biggest gainer was Marcos Martinez or Racing Engineering who was running eighth after starting nineteenth. Rodriguez began falling down the order to undo the advantage he gained from his short cut, but would still get a drive through penalty.

On the third lap the drivers that started on wets realised their mistake and pitted fro dry tyres.

Fillippi and Di Grassi were first to pit. It wouldn’t do either of then any good as Di Grassi would spin out tried to catch the field and Fillippi would later retire once his tyres reached the end of their lives.

The pace at the front was so fast, that by lap six the top four drivers has caught and lapped Aleshin who had made a pit stop. Aleshin helped out his countryman, Petrov, by blocking Nakijima unaware that he was being lapped so early in the race.

With Di Grassi out, Glock stayed on wets for longer than anybody else as drivers were still spinning of the track and retirement, including Kohei Hirate’s Trident who was running fourth. He eventually made his stop on lap thirteen and came out a long way behind the leader of the drivers who had stopped.

The top three of Nakijima, Pantano and Petrov pitted on three consecutive laps starting on lap fifteen. All three rejoined in the same order twenty seconds ahead of fourth placed Martinez after the stop.

Glock was along way now and needed to gain twenty seconds to get anywhere near the points. However he would quickly gain it back as Fillippi beg to suffer with his tyres. Fillippi was passed by Garcia and then Soucek through as he hoped against hope that his car would hold on: it didn't, and as Glock was charging he soon caught and passed Aleshin for eighth. Eighth would soon by seventh when Fillippi finally spun off in to the gravel.

Petrov held on from his teammate to win from Pantano who just held on from Nakijima. When they crossed the line Pantano slowed but Nakijima did not resulting in a dramatic collision between the two.

Fourth place went to Martinez, Fifth place was Garcia with Soucek in sixth. Glock finished in seventh place to open his lead to Di Grassi to four points and Javier Villa was eighth for Racing Engineering.

The fastest lap was set by Durango driver Karun Chandhok.

With no Formula One, the sprint race was pushed further back in the day so Sunday morning was free for a warm-up. Lapierre was fastest, with Fillippi in second. Championship contenders Glock and Di Grassi were tenth and fourteenth respectively.

The sprint race confirmed what we all knew after Saturdays race, Timo Glock is the 2007 GP2 Series champion.

He took a lights to flag victory from second on the grid to complete his championship season in the best possible way, after getting the jump on Villa who was on pole.

DI Grassi started nineteenth after his retirement on Saturday got a fast start, but his charge was halted when he caught Glock’s iSport teammate Andres Zuber. He would be stuck in a battle with Zuber over thirteenth place until the end of the race.

The lead battle form Saturday was continuing on Sunday, only this time it was over sixth place. Pantano was leading Petrov and Nakijima until Petrov ran wide onto the grass and was passed by both Nakijima and Fillippi who had attached himself to the back of the battle.

Glock was dominating the race leading by just over a second until he decided he wanted to pull out a lead. He increased it to seven seconds before easing off in the closing stages eventually winning by 5.4 seconds.

Villa was second, making it the first time this season he has started the sprint race on the front row and not won. Third place was Soucek who had pressure from fellow Spaniard Garcia all race. Pantano was fifth with Fillippi behind to take the last point of the season in sixth.

The bonus point for fastest lap went to Glock to cap off an dominate race and an impressive season.

The final standings show that Glock is the champion with 88 points he eventually beat Di Grassi by eleven points. Third place was jointly held by Pantano and Fillippi who have 59 points. The team’s championship was won by iSport with drivers Glock and Zuber scoring a total of 118 points.

My pre season prediction for the championship was Zuber. I was close; at least the eventual champion came from the same team.

Written: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:05:44