UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2: Round 4

Pantano anad Buemi win support

Round four of GP2 2008 was held at the Magny-Cours circuit in France. Following Monaco Giorgio Pantano leads for Racing Engineering and a share of the lead with iSport Bruno Senna, as they both have twenty-four points.

Third and fourth is also a tie, Alvaro Parente of Super Nova and ART driver Romain Grosjean both have nineteen points.

In the few weeks since Monaco there have been numerous driver changes. As previously reported, Formula One test drivers Lucas Di Grassi of Renault and Marko Asmer of BMW join the championship.

2007 runner-up Di Grassi returns to the championship replacing Ben Hanley at Campos and Asmer joins FMS replacing Adam Carroll.

Andy Soucek joins Super Nova, his third team of the season to replace Christian Bakkerud for the rest of the season and Brazilian International Formula Master racer Carlos Iaconelli has joined BCN to replace Milos Pavlovic.

On the morning of practise news of another driver swap broke, after leaving the Campos team earlier in the week, Hanley agreed to drive for Durango in place of Davide Valsecchi who is still recovering from his Turkish crash.

With all the driver swaps it was no surprise that an established name of Grosjean topped the practise timesheets. He was 0.158 seconds clear of Andres Zuber of Piquet Sports in second and the two Racing Engineering cars in third and fourth with Javier Villa ahead of Pantano. The best newcomer was Di Grassi who was eighth.

It was Senna who took pole in qualifying in controversial circumstances. The Brazilian appeared to be out of control as he crossed the line and stuck the wall bringing out the red flags immediately after crossing the line – very similar to Ayrton after he set pole for McLaren in 1991.

Joining him on the front row is local hero, Grosjean, after he set a time just 0.037 seconds slower than his rival. Pantano will start third for the race in which he will become the most experienced GP2 driver ever. Di Grassi was again the best of the newcomers with sixth.

Pantano marked his record breaking race with a record-equalling seventh win after rivals Senna and Grosjean both retired while leading with clutch problems.
Senna lead from the grid as Pantano got the jump on Grosjean to enter turn one in second place as Di Grassi jumped up into fourth place.

Kamui Kobayashi stalled his DAMS car on the grid and was wheeled into retirement before he had even moved.

The front three started to pull away from Di Grassi as the early stages of the race progressed. Di Grassi was in a lonely race as he has opened out an advantage over fifth placed Zuber.

When the pit stops started Zuber was the first of the leaders in and rejoined just ahead of Jerome D'Ambrosio of DAMS who was the first top make his pit stop in an attempt to gain time after being stuck in traffic at the start.

On lap seventeen Grosjean pitted from third place and promptly set the fastest lap on the his first flying lap, he plan worked as on lap eighteen both Senna and Pantano pitted together. Senna came out right in front of Grosjean with cold rear tires while Pantano was now down in third.

With Senna struggling to warm his tires Grosjean had the advantage and on lap twenty he passed at the Alidade Hairpin. The fight for the lead continued for three laps with Pantano keeping watch behind. Then Senna slowed. Pantano passed and Senna got slower and slower, he managed to limp back to the pits and straight into retirement.

With Senna gone, Pantano was up into second place and was putting Grosjean under huge pressure. Over the course of the next twelve laps he had closed the gap down to under a second, when Grosjean also slowed, a victim of the same sort of clutch failure that has sent Senna into retirement

Again Pantano passed and went unchallenged to victory. Grosjean also limped back into the pits and retirement.

With no competition Pantano was free to set the fastest lap and gain another point before crossing the line eight seconds ahead of Di Grassi on his return.

Pastor Maldonado kept himself out of trouble and quietly moved his way up into third place for Piquet Sports, ahead of Vitaly Petrov of Campos and Zuber in fifth.

Petrov and Zuber had a race long battle as they slowly moved away from D’Ambrosio who finished sixth with Karun Chandhok seventh for iSport and Mike Conway eighth for Trident.
Race two was a dramatic affair with drivers gambling to make huge gains and huge losses.

Sebastien Buemi won the race after starting twenty-first on the grid. He was followed home by his Trust Team Arden team mate Yelmer Buurman who finished second to record his first points of the season.

As the cars completed the formation lap, the track was very damp after an overnight thunderstorm and Buemi, Buurman, Senna starting twenty-third and a few others took the gamble to start on dry tyres while the majority of the field took the safe option and started on wets.

From the start third placed D’Ambrosio took second from Chandhok as the followed pole man Conway into the first corner. Chandhok would lose more places to Petrov and Di Grassi by the Alidade Hairpin.

On lap two D’Ambrosio ran off on the track on wet tyres and collided with Chandhok eliminating himself from the race. Chandhok would retire a few laps later.

By lap four the dry tyres were running faster than the wet tyres and the pit stops started to change to dry tyres. Petrov was the last to pit but on lap nine he was in and Buurman took the lead.

Grosjean had started on wet tyres in thirteenth place and was up to seventh before taking dry tyres but he spun into the gravel on his first lap out and left his home race with zero points.

Behind Buurman was Parente who was battling with Buemi. When Parente ran wide Buemi passed and began to chase down his team-mate who at this point was six seconds up the road.

Championship leader Pantano was making progress after Saturdays win but his race came to an end after contact with Petrov.

Parente was clear in third place until he developed mechanical problems and dropped back, losing places to Senna, ART driver Luca Fillippi, Di Grassi and Conway until he was out of the points.

Late on in the race Senna developed a re-occurrence of the clutch problems that affected him on Saturday but he was able to continue dropping to fifth.

Buurman also lost time and after a wheel to wheel battle he reluctantly allowed Buemi to take the lead. A position that he held until the end of the race.

Buurman held second and was followed home by Fillippi as both took their first points of the season. Di Grassi was fourth ahead of Senna and Conway to complete the points.
Pantano still leads the championship and now has 35 points, Senna remains second with 28 points and Buemi is now third with twenty points.

Written: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:57:24