UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 Asia: Round 2

Buemi and Fauzy take wins

Sentul, Indonesia was the home of the second round in the GP2 Asia Mini Series. After the opening round the standings show the dominance demonstrated by ART driver Romain Grosjean. He leads the championship with 19 points and is already ten clear of his nearest rival iSports Bruno Senna.

In the break between the two races Diego Nunes has left the Campos team to take the DPR drive vacated by Andy Soucek. His replacement at Campos is Ben Hanley, who will also drive for the team in the regular championship.

The practice session was topped by Adrian Valles driving for FMS, Vitaly Petrov was second for Campos Racing just under four-tenths behind and Grosjean was third.

In a qualifying session that was dry at the start and then became wet Petrov secured pole position a dominant three seconds faster than he nearest rival after he was the only man to get a flying lap in the dry. Qi-Meritus driver Luca Fillippi was fastest in the wet and will start second with Valles third. Championship leader Grosjean will start third some 3.4 seconds slower than Petrov.

Fairuz Fauzy of Super Nova and Stephen Jelley of ART were both given five grid place penalties for crossing the start and finish line twice after the chequered flag. Fauzy will start tenth and Jelley will start twenty-sixth.

Sebastien Buemi and his Arden team took advantage of a Luca Fillippi’s disqualification to take their first ever GP2 Asia wins in Saturdays feature race.

After the morning rain it was expected that the race would also see some rain during the course but it stayed away and the race was ran under dry conditions.

The race was dramatic even without rain as after only two laps there were already six cars out of the running. Marco Puglisi of Minardi Piquet Sports and Kamui Kobayashi of DAMS were both unable to take the start following their problems in qualifying.

Adam Khan of Arden cashed into Christian Bakkerud of Super Nova, who in turn took out Harald Schlegelmilch and his Trident ruining a very impressive qualifying performance for other the Dane and Latvian. Jason Tachini and his BCN was the other driver to retire on the opening lap.

With three cars parked in the gravel the safety car was released at the start of lap two while marshals began the long and drawn out process of removing the three standard cars, attempting to drag them through the gravel with a standard Jeep.

After the second lap was completed the pit window opened predictably the majority of the field immediately headed for the pit lane to get their stop out of the way early.

The pit stop policy for iSport during last season was to give their leading driver the option of stopping first. S Karun Chandhok was running seventh with teammate Bruno Senna down in tenth the Indian was offered, and accepted, the team’s invitation to pit first.

This left Senna out on track and leading the race very slowly behind the safety car, also electing to stay out was Yoshimoto of Qi-Meritus and five other drivers.

During the pit stops, Petrov emerged leading of those who had pitted and eighth on the road, Valles jumped up to second ahead of Fillippi in ninth and tenth. The was a disaster in the ART garage as Grosjean had a problem with his stop and rejoined all the way down in eighteenth.

The safety car was finally withdrawn after an appalling twelve laps, considering they only had three cars to remove. Senna lead from Yoshimoto.

There was very little overtaking for significant places during the next few laps. Senna opened out a lead hoping that it would be enough for him to pit and still salvage something from the race. During this period he set the fastest lap of the race.

Just after half distance, new DPR driver Nunes crashed into the wall and a second safety car was needed. Three of the seven cars that stayed out during the original safety car now pitted leaving; Senna, Yoshimoto, Michael Herek of FMS and Alberto Valerio of Minardi Piquet Sports still to make their mandatory pit stop.

At the second restart Senna lead from Yoshimoto, Petrov was third and Grosjean was up to ninth just behind debutant Hanley.

Everybody would soon gain two places when both Senna and Yoshimoto were given drive through penalties for overtaking the safety car before it had crossed the line at the beginning of the pit lane.

This handed the lead and seemingly the win to Petrov, but he was to throw it all way by himself by getting a wheel on to the gravel and spinning down to sixth place.

Fillippi crossed the line first followed by Buemi, Valles, Hanley and Grosjean in fifth. Sixth was Petrov with M. Pavlovic seventh for BCN and Senna salvaging a point by fining eighth of just eleven cars to make the flag.

It was late into the evening before the results became official as race winner Fillippi was disqualified from the race because the team had given him tires allocated to for use by his teammate.

This pushed everybody up one spot with Fauzy promoted in to the final points paying positions for Super Nova. Stephen Jelley was had finished tenth was also disqualified because his car refueled on the grid prior to the start of the race. That left just nine classified finishers from the entry list of twenty-six.

The rain that threatened to disrupt the feature race returned to affect the sprint race.

The race started behind the safety car as the conditions were deemed to dangerous for a racing start, this gave Fauzy who inherited pole position due to Filippis disqualification nine laps behind the safety car reducing the length of time he had to defend from Senna.

Behind the safety car Valerio and Schlegelmilch both crashed into retirement with Jerome D’Ambrosio of DAMS crashing on the first lap of green flag racing.

After only a few laps both Puglisi of Minardi Piquet Sports has spun in very difficult decisions. Although both rejoined the race the safety car was again deployed.

During the safety car Hiroki Yoshimoto pitted his Qi-Meritus car to pit for dry tyres, a decision that would either be very good or very bad. It was a bad decision and he eventually finished twentieth three laps behind.

When the safety car was withdrawn for the second time there was only sixteen laps left. Fauzy lead from Senna.

Again as soon as the safety car was in there was another accident. Bakkerud attempted to pass Jelley at the first corner tipping him into a spin leaving him beached in the gravel. Also on that first lap Hanley made a risky move on Grosjean in their battle over fourth place but he only succeeded in punting Pavlovic into the gravel and out of the race and the safety car was needed for the third time. Hanley limped back to the pits and was able to rejoin.

While the safety car was out for a third time it became a timed race. The race distance was thirty-one laps or forty-five minutes and after only four laps of real racing there was only twelve minutes on the clock.

When the safety car came in again there was only six minutes remaining. That was nowhere near enough time for any overtaking moves, with the only battle between Fauzy and Senna over the race lead.

In the last two minutes Puglisi spun at turn one and his car was stranded in the middle of the track. With so little time remaining the safety car did not come out again and there was a hairy moment when the leaders came round on their last lap and he was still stranded.

Fauzy held on and won by 1.4 seconds from Senna. Petrov was third, Grosjean fourth and Valles fifth all finishing where they started with the expiation of Pavlovic who retired.

The only man who made up any ground was Ho-Pin Tung of Trident who took the last point for sixth after starting thirteenth.

In the championship Grosjean still leads, he now has twenty-nine points. Senna remains second with eighteen and Valles is third with fifteen. After their race wins this weekend Fauzy is fourth with thirteen and Buemi is fifth with ten.

The next round is in five weeks time as a support race to the Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix on March 23.

Written: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:12:50