UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 Asia: Round 5

Buemi is vice-champion

The last round of the GP2 Asia series by held where it all began, at the Dubai Autodrome. Romain Grosjean of ART, who dominated that first weekend has already won the championship but the battle for second in still very much alive.

Going into the race Grosjean had 49 points behind Vitaly Petrov of Campos holds second place 28 points but behind Fairuz Fauzy of Super Nova, Sebastien Buemi of Arden and Bruno Senna if iSport all have 23 points, and Kamui Kobayashi of DAMS is sixth with 22 points

FMS driver Michael Herck was forced to sit out the event due to a hand injury sustained in the Bahrain race. His replacement was Roldan Rodriquez. Also missing from race two was ART driver Stephen Jelley. He had British Touring Car Championship commitments at Rockingham over the same weekend so he qualified the car and completed in race one before flying back to England on Friday night.

The practise session was topped unsurprisingly by Grosjean but it was very tight. Just 0.014 seconds slower was his regular series team-mate Luca Filippi driving for Qi-Meritus, with Kobayashi third.

In qualifying it was more of the same, Grosjean on pole, then it was Senna who have had a sequence of very bad luck during this championship and must hope to get it sorted before the regular series starts. Third on the grid was Kobayashi, with Marco Bonanomi causing the surprise by qualifying fourth.

Grosjean continued domination of this championship lead to another win in the feature race on Friday as a botched pit stop by iSport cost Senna a certain win and resulted in his disqualification.

Senna took the lead from Grosjean on the first lap after a mistake by the Frenchman at the chicane and dropped down to fourth after also being passed by the two Arden cars of Yelmer Buurman and Buemi.

Over the course of the next few laps both Buemi and Grosjean were able to pass Buurman as he fell backwards and into the clutches of Petrov who was running fifth.

When Buemi pitted Grosjean was free to attack Senna but the Brazilian had opened out such a big lead it seemed that Grosjean would have to settle for second place. But when Senna pitted on lap twenty-eight his iSport team only changed one tyre instead of the mandatory two.

The following lap he was in again to change another tyre but because he only changed one tyre at both pit stops he was disqualfied from the race meaning that he started the sprint race at the back rather than his finished place of ninth.

Grosjean and Buemi were left to fight for the win with the Frenchman taking the lead on lap twenty-six. Buemi had no answer and followed Grosjean at finish first and second. Buurman capped a steady race to claim his first podium in GP2 by finishing third. Petrov finished fourth with Yoshimoto claming fifth for Qi-Meritus after a last second pass on Minardi-Piquet Sports driver Marco Bonanomi. Jerome D’Ambrosio was seventh for DAMS with Milos Pavlovic taking the final point for BCN.

The battle for second place now read; Petrov 33 Vs Buemi 32.

In the sprint race Bonanomi claimed his first win from third on the grid in the race that saw the battle for second in the championship was claimed by Buemi.

It was an unusually clean start by GP2 standards Pavlovic kept his lead but retired midway round the opening lap with an oil pressure problem. D’Ambrosio lead but was passed on the second lap by Bonanomi and Buemi.

With Buemi running third Petrov was fifth stuck behind Ho-Pin Tung of BCN, that result would give Buemi second place in the championship.

On lap five the safety car was deployed after a four car crash involving the two DPR cars of Diego Nunez and Armaan Ebrahim as well as Alberto Valerio of Durango and Ben Hanley of Campos.
At the restart, Bonanomi kept the lead, Buemi ran wide and lost his place to D’Ambrosio but the Swiss driver quickly regained second place. D’Ambrosio also lost a place to Petrov but the Russian driver soon retired with a fuel pressure problem.

Bonanomi won the race comfortably for the win followed by Buemi to secure his place as vice-champion behind Grosjean. D’Ambrosio took third, Davide Valsecchi fourth for Durango, Buurman fifth and Fairuz Fauzy took the last point of the season in sixth.

The season ended with Grosjean on 61 points, Buemi was second with 37 points clear ahead of Petrov who ended up third with 33 points. Grosjean’s domination was so great that ART became the teams champions despite Stephen Jelly failing to score any points.

Written: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:23:03