UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 Asia Round 3: Sepang

Petrov and Kobayashi take wins

Round three of GP2 Asia was the first to be supported by the Formula One circus. After the opening two rounds Romain Grosjean still leads the championship with twenty-nine points. Bruno Senna is second with eighteen and Adrian Valles is third with fifteen.

Practice saw championship leader Romain Grosjean set the fastest time for ART he was just under a tenth of a second faster than Qi-Meritus driver Luca Fillippi, who will become his team mate once the regular season starts. Third place went to Adrian Valles of FMS International who was a further two tenths back.

In qualifying it was Grosjean again who was fastest and will start the race from pole position. Joining him on the front row, albeit eight tenths slower, is iSport driver Karun Chandhok. Third again goes to Valles who is joined by Senna meaning that the top three in the championship start on the first two rows of the grid.

Four drivers were given five place penalties for yellow flag infringements; they were Luca Fillippi and Hiroki Yoshimoto of Qi-Meritus, Vitaly Petrov of Campos and Jason Tachini of BCN. Petrov also got another penalty for passing the checkered flag twice at the end of qualifying.

The expected Saturday rain struck to late to affect the Formula One qualifying but by the time the GP2 cars took to the track the rain was just beginning to wall and it was Petrov who needed all of his skill and luck to win the restarted rain interrupted race.

When the cars moved of on the formation lap second on the grid, Chandhok, was initially slow away and then stalled forcing him into the pit lane and down to the back of the grid.

With the front row to himself Grosjean stalled as the remaining twenty-four cars flew past. Senna took the lead from Valles as all carnage started in the slippery conditions behind.

Senna was one of many of the drivers who spin off, further back Stephen Jelly tapped Fillippi into a spin causing a concertina effect which saw Ben Hanley of Campos crash into the back of Yoshimoto

Also on the first lap Alberto Valerio spun his Durango into the gravel as Minardi Piquet Sports driver Marco Bonanomi spun and bounced wildly over the gravel and hit the stranded car.

The safety car was deployed on lap one and with so much carnage the race was stopped at the end of lap two.

Yoshimoto pitted at the end of the first lap to repair damage suffered on the first lap, but he had major problems and while he attempted to catch the safety car he spun no fewer than three times, he did make it back to the pits and retirement.

When the race restarted the grid order was taken from the order they had been running in when the race was stopped meaning that Valles was on pole from Sebastien Buemi of Arden. As the cars rolled away when the race restarted Senna stalled and fell down to last.

The race restarted behind the safety car for one lap before it came in and the race was underway again with Senna and Grosjean near the back and ready to charge through.

When the race restarted the leaders were being careful and there were no position changes. The top ten opened out a huge lead over the rest of the field with drivers behind falling to far behind the car in front. The closest battle at the restart was between Fairuz Fauzy of Super Nova and Ho-Pin Tung of Trident over third place.

The first pit stops were made on lap four with Michael Herek of FMS and Tachini becoming the first drivers to make their mandatory pit stop.

The top two teams were having problems. ART driver Stephen Jelly spun at the final hairpin getting stuck in the gravel and retiring then iSport lost Senna who went straight on, on the following lap and also retired. This left Grosjean thirteenth for ART and Chandhok fifteenth for iSport.

With the difficult conditions the race was quite processional early on, the only entertainment coming with Grosjean’s charge through the field.

On lap eight Valles and Buemi were pulling away from Fauzy in third who had Tung right behind him. In the closing stages of the lap Petrov passed Minardi Piquet Sports driver Davide Valsecchi to take fifth place.

By lap ten Petrov had caught Tung and Fauzy to make it a three was right for third, at the same time Grosjean passed Armaan Ebrahim in the DPR to take tenth place. Grosjean’s next two places could not have been made easier. Running in tenth place the two men in front of him Jérôme D’Ambrosio of DAMS and Miloš Pavlovic of BCN ran wide in the same corner gifting him eighth place.

Thee battle for fourth place was hotting up, Fauzy was beginning to open an advantage as Tung was wheel to wheel with Petrov down the main straight on lap thirteen but the Chinese driver held on to his position. That was until Tung spun and fell down to eighth place

Grosjean moved up to sixth place on lap fourteen when Harald Schlegelmilch spun his Trident out of sixth place and on the next lap he passed Valsecchi to take fifth. His next targets were the three way battle for third place.

Petrov then passed Fauzy to take third at the hairpin so Fauzy made the decision to pit with sixteen laps to go. Also in at the same time was Valsecchi. They both decided to change to slick tires despite the track still being very wet.
Their first laps on slick tires were four seconds slower that the times they were doing on wet tires.

With twelve laps to go Buemi made his pit stop from second place and he too chose to go for slick tires. Slicks was the order of the day as five drivers in eighth down to twelfth place all came in together and changed to slicks.

With eleven laps to go the top three all pitted. Valles from the lead, Petrov and Grosjean all changed to slicks now that the slick tire times were only two seconds a lap slower.

Valles came out ahead of Buemi and with Buemi having tires up to temperature he was all over the back of the Spaniard until the two touched under braking. With very little grip both drivers slid into the gravel.

Petrov and Grosjean rejoined in the same order and Pavlovic had his tires up to temperature he attempted to pass but was involved in contact with Grosjean damaging his track rod forcing him to pit for repairs.

All of this lead left Petrov leading the race with ten laps to go. Fauzy was second and D’Ambrosio third.

DPR driver Diego Nunez was doing his best to make as many enemies as possible. While been lapped he badly held up first Fauzy and then a battle for fourth lead by Kamui Kobayashi of DAMS and Valsecchi fifth and Yelmer Buurman of Arden sixth. After they had all passed Nunez there was a small gap between them and any possible battles were ruined.

For his actions Nunez was given a thirty-second stop and go penalty.

Behind them was the battle for seventh lead by Pavlovic ahead of Schlegelmilch who were still very close but their positions did not change in the last few laps and the top eight finished as they were with ten laps to go with Petrov taking his first victory of the season.

After the race Christian Bakkerud of Super Nova was excluded from the weekend after disobeying marshal’s instructions. He spun and was push started and after the race the marshals had claimed that he had disobeyed their orders and, as a result, the stewards were left with little option but to penalize him, choosing to exclude the Super Nova driver from Sunday's sprint race.

The sprint race was processional by GP2 standards and was won by Kamui Kobayashi.

It was the start that gave the Japanese driver his victory as he went from fourth on the grid to leading by the first corner. Directly behind feature race winner Petrov started eighth and took second at the first corner.

Front row starters Schlegelmilch and Pavlovic had bad starts and were under pressure from the ninth placed Grosjean, who would pass them with in a few laps of the race starting.

On lap twelve Grosjean passed Petrov to take second place, leaving him with ten laps to close down the seven second advantage that Kobayashi had opened out.

Behind the front runners, Pavlovic and Schlegelmilch were battling over fifth place. The two touched sending Pavlovic into a spin dropping him down the order and Schlegelmilch retired as a result of the contact.

After the top three of Kobayashi, Grosjean and Petrov there was a big gap back to Valsecchi if fourth place that in turn had a big gap back to the battle for fifth place consisting of Buurman and Fauzy who completed the points. The bonus point for fastest lap went to Senna who had a difficult race stuck in midfield before finishing eighth.

After an eventful weekend Grosjean sill leads the championship, he now has 35 points; jumping up to second following his win is Petrov who now has 24 points. Dropping to third is the impressive and improving Fauzy who was 23 points.

Written: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:58:29