UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2 - Round 9

Championship in Pantanos hands

The penultimate round of the GP2 Series came from the historic Spa circuit in Belgium. Giorgio Pantano leads the championship with 71 points for Racing Engineering. Bruno Senna of iSport has 58 and Lucas Di Grassi of Campos has 51 points.

In free practise Pastor Maldonado of Piquet Sports was fastest. Pantano was second 0.048 seconds slower, with Vitaly Petrov third for Campos. Senna was down in fifteenth place.

In qualifying Karun Chandhok set the fastest time for iSport due to his ten place grid penalty carried over from the European Grand Prix in Valencia he will only start eleventh. Senna takes over pole position and the two bonus points. Alvaro Parente will start second for Super Nova with Romain Grosjean third for ART. Pantano will start fourth.

Grosjean won a chaotic feature race by staying on the track as his rivals found themselves involved with the stewards.

The race started behind the safety car as the rain became so severe between Formula One qualifying just an hour before the race, it was deemed unsafe to start any other way.

After two laps the safety car came in and Senna opened out a small advantage over the cars behind. The only pass into the first racing turn was Maldonado on Andy Soucek of Super Nova for seventh.

There were no real incidents between the start and the pit stops, except a spin for BCN driver Carlos Iaconelli at the back of the pack.

By the pit stops the rain had stopped and the track was starting to dry. Zuber was first in on lap seven, he took dry tyres and on his out lap set the fastest middle sector of the race to that point.

This promoted Senna to pit from the lead, followed by Pantano in third. Both took dry tyres but when Senna was released he was into the path of the Durango of Albereto Valerio. They avoided contact but the mechanic on the left rear wheel of the DPR team took avoiding action, although he need not need to move the tyre.

Senna rejoined the race ahead of Pantano and as they fed back into the race they were spilt by Pantano’s team mate Javier Villa. The stewards decided that it was an unsafe release and called Senna in for a drive through penalty.

On the next lap the rest of the front runners, with the exception of Soucek made their pit stops.

The safety car was needed when Durango driver Davide Valsecchi had a huge incident at Stavelot. The Medical car also took to the track but Valsecchi was unhurt and after spending a night in hospital was cleared to take the sprint race start.

Under the safety car Pantano slowed dramatically. He was running second behind Senna, who still needed to take his penalty, but once he got running again he had dropped to tenth place and out of the points.

When the race resumed Senna stayed out and maintained his lead. He took his penalty on the next lap, lap fifteen. This dropped him down the order to twenty-fourth and last.
Parente took the lead but was under pressure from Grosjean. Parente made a mistake in the Bus Stop Chicane and Grosjean took his change and out-braked him into La Source.

The safety car was again needed when Valerio crashed with four laps to go. He spun between Stavelot and Blanchimont.

The race resumed with just two laps left. Pantano was desperate to get back into the points but while passing Roldan Rodriquez in the FMS car he left his breaking too late and punted Di Grassi, leading both into retirement.

Grosjean opened out a lead over second placed Parente as he took his first feature race win of the season. Zuber finished third after battling with team mate Maldonado for most of the race.

Zuber was disqualfied after the race ‘due to unauthorised repairs to his Piquet Sports car.’ thus promoting his team mate on to the podium. Vitaly Petrov was promoted to fourth for Campos, Sebastien Buemi was fifth for Arden, Soucek was sixth, Mike Conway seventh for Super Nova and Jerome D'Ambrosio was the big winner after Zuber’s disqualification promoted to eighth to give in a point and the sprint race pole.

After the race the stewards also decided to disqualify Pantano from the entire weekend following his clash with Di Grassi. Not much of a punishment in my opinion as he got nothing out of the feature race and would be starting the sprint race in twenty-first place with little to no chance of getting into the top six. A grid penalty in Monza would have been a more appropriate punishment.

Maldonado won the sprint race after passing cars to make his way up from sixth on the grid to pass D'Ambrosio who had lead the entire race, with just half a lap to go.

D'Ambrosio kept his inherited pole from Soucek on a damp but drying track on slick tyres.

Maldonado made his first pass on lap two as he took fifth place from Parente, at the same spot Grosjean moved into seventh place by passing Kobayashi. Senna was making up ground passing Fillippi on lap two while Di Grassi followed him.

Maldonado kept on his charge first passing Buemi and them coming very close to ending his own race as he hit the back of Petrov and took to the escape road and rejoined.

The next time round Maldonado made the move stick and was up into third place. Senna moved up into eighth place when Conway spun his car into the wall on the start and finish line.

This seamed to signal that the rain was re-occurring, especially when Valerio made a similar mistake a few laps later brining out the safety car.

It took three laps to clear Valero’s car, but under safety car Parente got his braking wrong at the Bus Stop and heading straight into the escape road and into the tyre wall. This indecent promoted Senna and Di Grassi to seventh and eighth and just one place outside the points.

On the first lap after the safety car a moment that virtually handed the title to Pantano. Grosjean attempted an all or nothing move around the outside of Buemi at Blanchimont eventually deciding it was too risky and backing out. Following the confusion Senna attempted to sneak past both but Buemi pulled across in front of Senna and the two touched, ending Senna’s race.

On lap fourteen of the eighteen Maldonado finally got the better of Soucek for second place. Soon after Soueck’s race would come to end as he crashed at Stavelot with just two laps to go.

D'Ambrosio started his last lap still in the lead but as he had so many times on the run out of Eau Rouge Maldonado got the better run and as he had so many times out-braked him into Les Combes.

Following the now second placed D'Ambrosio across the line was Petrov, Buemi, Di Grassi and Kobayashi.

In the championship; Pantano still leads Senna by 71 points to sixty, Senna scoring two points for pole in an otherwise pointless race for both. The last round is in Monza where Pantano has always won in recent years. The battle for third will go right to the wire as the two Renault development drivers, Grosjean and Di Grassi are now tied on fifty-three points.

Written: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:09:49