UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2: Round 2

Race marred by the dog

Round two of GP2 was held in Istanbul, Turkey. After the opening round in Spain two weeks ago Alvaro Parente leads the championship for Super Nova with eleven points, tied with Bruno Senna of iSport. Giorgio Pantano of Racing Engineering is third with nine points.

While the Formula One circus was still reeling from the departure of Super Aguri from its ranks, GP2 fans were trying to get their heads around a shock sacking in the build up to the race. After an impressive Asian series Adrian Valles has been sacked by FMS and replaced by A1GP Team Ireland driver Adam Carroll, who returns to the team after a strong 2007. In turn Valles has signed to drive for BCN replacing Paolo Maria Nocera

Also on the driver front, Christian Bakkerud is suffering from yet another back injury and has been replaced at Super Nova by Andy Soucek.

Pantano of Racing Engineering was fastest in the practise session two tenths faster than the two Piquet Sports cars headed by Andres Zuber three tenths faster than Pastor Maldonado.

Pantano was again fastest in qualifying but the session was marred by a huge accident by Durango driver Davide Valsecchi right towards the end of the session in which he had to be helped out of the car. As a result Valsecchi will not take any further part this weekend. Zuber will start second ahead of Carroll who will start third on his return to the series.

From pole position, the feature race was won by Pantano, who lead from start to finish and got a good break with lapped cars during a safety car period, but as he got on with in all eyes were on the battle for second.

As the cars pulled away from the dummy grid for the formation lap there was the compulsory staler. This time it was co-championship leader Parente who was wheeled into the pit lane to take his start.

At the race start, Pantano got away cleanly but third on the grid, Carroll, got a very poor start dropping to eighth place. His slow start affected others, Senna was held up and he was involved in the first corner incident that left both Yelmer Buurman of Arden and Ben Hanley of Campos pointing in the wrong direction.
Senna lost his front wing, as Grosjean jumped into second place followed by Zuber who took third.

Pantano was opening out his lead, which was five seconds by lap seven because of the scrap behind.

Behind Carroll was defending his place from Arden driver Sebastien Buemi. Buemi was unable to pass on track but when the pit stop window opened Buemi was able to jump Carroll with a quicker pit stop from his team.

Racing Engineering driver Javier Villa was also in the reckoning to gain a place but his team let him out of the pit box into the path of Maldonado and only so evasive action by the Spaniard avoided a incident.

With the gap between Grosjean and Zuber a steady three tenths of a second the battle for ninth was the closest on the track. DAMS driver Jerome D'Ambrosio was leading Carroll and Maldonado. Carroll was coming under attack from Maldonado and proving that attack is the best form of defence he avoided losing tenth by passing D’Ambrosio to take ninth.

Chandhok was fourth and in a very lonely race. When he made his pit stop the top three, who had not pitted, has a forty-five second lead over the Indian. That lead become nothing when Durango driver Alberto Valerio spun and left the car stranded in the middle of the track at turn eighth.

Pantano, Grosjean and Zuber pitted immediately and rejoined behind the safety car in the same order but there was lapped cars between them. The backmarkers were behind the safety car due to the pit stops but when they were waved past until Pantano headed the train he had Soucek and Fillippi behind him before Grosjean and Zuber.

Pantano was able to drive away from the field, Soucek dived out of the way but Fillippi let his team mate Grosjean pass but blocked Zuber for a few corners allowing Grosjean to open his margin to two seconds.

Pantano took his sixth GP2 win in his fourth season, just one behind the all-time record held by Timo Glock. Grosjean was second ahead of Zuber who was third.

Chandhok had a lonely race to finish fourth, ahead of Campos driver Vitaly Petrov in fifth, Buemi sixth, Villa seventh and Carroll eighth after Villa passed on the penultimate lap.

Grosjean won the sprint race on Sunday but this race will be remembered for an unforgivable and potentially fatal incident involving Senna striking a stray dog.

At the start of the race Carroll had a bad start from pole dropping to fifth by the first corner and retiring from a clutch problem second later.

Petrov took the lead at the start as Soucek and Kobayashi collided at turn one both retiring on the spot. At the next turn Zuber Buurman collided as they took evasive action to avoid the slowing Carroll. Maldonado and D'Ambrosio also retired on the opening lap, while Trident driver Ho Pin Tung stalled and retired.

The safety car came out for four laps. When it came in Petrov lead from Buemi, Villa, Grosjean and Pantano following.

Grosjean quickly progressed up the field passing Villa on lap five and Buemi on lap seven to take second place. At the same time Pantano passed team mate Villa in a move that looked very easy. Villa lost another place to Conway on lap nine and when Chandhok attempted to follow he only succeeded in spinning to the back of the field followed by Villa who himself spun at the last corner of the lap

This helped promote Senna up into seventh place after starting fifteenth on the grid.

Grosjean was right behind Petrov in the battle for the lead and on lap twelve he was able to pass at the third time he had made a move.

Then the shocking incident. Senna was now up to sixth place but two stray dogs wandered onto the track. Senna struck one of them and was forced to limp back to the pits to retire. The safety car came out while marshals attempted to catch the larger of the two dogs.

When the safety car came in there were no further over taking moves as Grosjean pulled away from Petrov and won at a canter. Following Petrov in to third place was Buemi. Pantano ran a quiet race to finish fourth to take valuable points. Fifth was Conway and Hanley was the one to benefit from Senna’s accident to claim the final point

In the championship, Petrov has now taken the lead with twenty-four points. Sprint race winner Grosjean has jumped into second with nineteen points and Buemi is third with fourteen.

Written: Sun, 11 May 2008 16:35:36