UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2: Round 8

Double win for Spanish Campos team

Round eight of GP2 2008 came from Valencia, home of the brand new street-circuit playing host to the European Grand Prix.

Giorgio Pantano still leads moving his total on to sixty-five points for Racing Engineering. Senna is just seven behind on fifty-eight for iSport, and Di Grassi has thirty-nine and is in third place for Campos.

The practise session was topped by Pantano with a time of 1:47.340he was over half a second clear of Alvaro Parente for Super Nova, with Karun Chandhok third for iSport. Senna had a bad session and ended up down in eighteenth place.

Pantano followed up his practise success by qualifying on pole position but it was a much tighter affair as he was less than a tenth faster than Pastor Maldonado of Piquet Sports who will join him on the front row. Vitaly Petrov qualified third for Campos with Senna improving to start in eighth place.

Petrov took victory in the feature race after an unbelievable last four-hundred yards that saw both race dominator Pantano and championship contender Senna run out of fuel within sight of the finish line.

Pantano pulled away from his pole position, but behind there was accidents. Ho-Pin Tung of Trident, Kamui Kobayashi of DAMS and Racing Engineering driver Javier Villa all ended up in the wall prompting the safety car to make an appearance.

Pantano started pulling away from Petrov in second place after the race resumed, Maldonado was in third with Grosjean and Senna gave chase.

Senna and sixth placed Zuber pitted together on lap ten, with Grosjean and Petrov a few laps later before Pantano made his stop on lap fourteen. He rejoined still in the lead with Petrov behind.

Maldonado dropped to fifth place after being passed in the pit stops by Grosjean and Senna, after he was stuck behind Di Grassi who stopped late.

At the lower end of the top eight, D'Ambrosio had Parente and Di Grassi right behind him, both were able to get past dropping D'Ambrosio into the clutches of the Arden duo of Sebastien Buemi and Luca Fillippi.
Zuber was running in the points until he spun out of the race, this promoted Di Grassi into eighth place.

On to the last lap Pantano was cruising to an easy win until with just two corners to go he suddenly slowed, first Petrov and then Maldonado passed him to finish first and second, Grosjean passed also to finish third.

Senna should have been next to passed Pantano but at exactly the same point he too ran out of fuel.

D'Ambrosio and Di Grassi passed Senna on either side, Di Grassi took the inside line for the last corner and beat D'Ambrosio over the line for fourth place.

Pantano stopped out on the track and was officially classified in fourteenth place while Senna kept his momentum and he rolled to the line. Sixth was Buemi and Soucek was seventh, both passing Senna as he creped very slowly down the start/finish straight. When he was just inches away from getting eighth place Fillippi came round the last corner and pipped him to the place and the sprint race pole. Senna was ninth.

On Sunday Campos completed a home double as Di Grassi followed-up on Petrov’s win, and again it was due to other drivers problems.

Di Grassi got the best start and was second after the first few corners as he slotted in behind Fillippi who lead from pole. Grosjean followed him into third place as both forced their way past Soucek.

The first retirement was Zuber, after crashing yesterday he had to make up places at the start but he hit the back of Michael Herek’s DPR car eliminating both drivers from the race.

Both Senna and Pantano took advantage of the drama around them to move up to fifth and seventh respectively.

They gained another place when Maldonado under steered into the wall and retired. Up at the front Grosjean was able to take second from Di Grassi and began to chase down his former team-mate.

Disaster came for Senna a few laps later. He had passed a slowing Soucek for fourth place and was in a hurry to close down the three second advantage that third placed Di Grassi had over him, but just a few corners later he spun into the wall and retirement.

The battle for lead was getting closer with Grosjean having several attempts to pass Fillippi, he eventually out-beaked the Italian in to the last corner and won the drag race through turn one to lead. It did not last long as half way round the lap Fillippi punted Grosjean into the wall. Fillippi ran wide as a result allowing Di Grassi and easy pass on both to take the lead.
Late in the race the safety car came out as FMS driver Marko Asmer spun and stalled in the middle of the circuit. When the race resumed Di Grassi made the best restart and was untouchable for the remaining eight laps.

After the safety car the was a huge battle over sixth place, Petrov held the place and was holding off Villa and Chandhok. Both Petrov and Villa were slow in to a corner and Chandhok attempted a pass on both but only pushed Petrov into a spin. Both cars made it back to the pits where both retired. The stewards were also investigating this incident.

Fillippi crossed the line in second but the stewards placed him under investigation for the Grosjean accident and may issue a penalty which will affect the results.

Third was D'Ambrosio, fourth was Pantano, fifth was Diego Nunez of DPR and the final point went to Javier Villa of Racing Engineering. All four drivers ended up in third positions by keeping out of trouble and gaining positions as other drivers fell off in front of them.

Pantano has extended his lead after Senna’s pointless weekend. He now has 70 points to Senna’s 58. Di Grassi has also extended his lead over Grosjean in the battle for third. He now has 51 and leads Grosjean’s 42 points.

After the race the stewards announced that Fillippi would be handed a twenty-five second penalty, therefore he drops from second to thirteenth place. DAMS driver Kamui Kobayashi is the winner as his is promoted to sixth place. In the championship Pantano gets an extra point for finishing third instead of fourth.

Written: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:03:15