UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2: Round 3

Petrov takes series lead

The third race of the 2009 GP2 series was held in Istanbul in Turkey. After the historic setting of Monaco Romain Grosjean leads the championship for Barwa Addax with thirty one points and has a huge lead with Jerome D’Ambrosio of DAMS and team-mate Vitaly Petrov tied in second place with eighteen points.

The weekend started with a sea of blue Ocean Racing Technology, as their drivers Alvaro Parente and Karun Chandhok topped the practise time sheets with 0.557 seconds separating them. Grosjean was the best of the rest ending up third and Alberto Valerio of Piquet Sports was forth and he was the last man to be within seven tenths of a second of Parente.

Qualifying, at the two vital bonus points went to Nico Hulkenberg of ART. He was just over a tenth of a second faster that Luca Fillippi of Super Nova, who will join him on the front row, with the Brawa Addax car lining up right behind with a lock out of the second row.

The feature race was won by Petrov, and it was ham and his Barwa Addax team-mate that made the race memorable.

At the start Hulkenberg was slow from his pole allowing Grosjean to get a run on him; however the German was able to hold him off for long enough so former ART driver Luca Fillippi could shove himself back into second place.

Half was round the first lap Grosjean was still all over the back Fillippi when he ran wide and dropped all the way back to ninth place.

With Grosjean out of contention, Petrov took up the mantel of lead Barwa Addax driver. He had Parente all over the back of him, but the Portuguese driver pushed his Ocean Racing Technology car too hard and ran wide dropping back. With Parente away from him Petrov was about to make his move.

Coming through the tight last three corners, Fillippi was putting huge pressure on Hulkenberg but in their battle they slowed each other down so much, Petrov was able to take the tighter line and pass both of them in the last corner. Fillippi got back up to speed better and took second, but for Hulkenberg the section was a disaster as Zuber also forced his way past to take third.

At this point the race settled down. Hulkenberg began to struggle on his tyres and very quickly dropped back from the top three, and was soon caught by Parente and the rest of the top eight, before he decided he has no choice to pit after fourteen laps. After the pit stops it got worse for Hulkenberg as Super Nova driver Javier Villa pitted behind and left in front.

The Super Nova pit crew again helped their drivers on the next lap, second placed Villa pitted at the same time as third placed Zuber. Before the pits stops Zuber was the faster of the two but could not find a way past, and after the pit stops the Super Nova crew got Fillippi out first and with an increased lead.

Seconds later Parente spun off and out of the race. He was quite away of the track but it was at a quick section of the track, so the safety car was called.

On the same lap, before catching the safety car Petrov pitted from the lead, and was able to get out before Fillippi passed still at close to racing speeds. Everybody else came into the pits as they came down the start and finish straight on the same lap.

As the safety car let the backmarkers past, it took almost an entire lap for it to pick up Petrov, by which time the stricken car of Parente had been removed.

Earlier in the race there were a few cars smoking slightly because of an overfill of oil to try and prevent damage to the engine under the high G-Forces through turn eight. While the safety car was out the Durango car of Nelson Panciatici was smoking more than slightly as his engine expired in a huge way spreading smoke over the entire circuit.

The big winner under the safety car was Davide Valsecchi of Durango, who after a well timed pit stop had found himself in third place.

At the restart, Petrov moved back into his lead that he had before the safety car. Behind him Fillippi and Valsecchi moved clear of Zuber in fourth place and although there were no overtaking attempts there was never more than a couple of car lengths between them as they followed Petrov home.

The battle for fourth was where the action was happening. Zuber was fourth but his tyres had gone off following an early stop. Fifth was Villa, but he dropped to ninth in the space of four corners. Valerio was sixth and forced his way through, and Villa looked at getting his spot back Hulkenberg, iSports Giedo Van Der Garde and the other ART Grand Prix of Pastor Maldonado all forced there way past.

Valerio was the man on the move as he passed Zuber before he followed Villa plummeting down the order. Once again once Valerio had passed the train of Hulkenberg, Van Der Garde and Maldonado and a recovering Villa all followed dropping Zuber to ninth.

This put Valerio fourth, Hulkenberg fifth, Van Der Garde sixth, Maldonado seventh and Villa eighth, before the end of the race Lucas Di Grassi of Racing Engineering also passed Zuber to take ninth place and Maldonado passed Van Der Garde for sixth place as the race came to a conclusion.

After the race Van Der Garde and Grosjean were both given penalties for overtaking the safety car. Van Der Garde had twenty five seconds added to his time dropping his from seventh to fourteenth, promoting Di Grassi into the top eight.

As Grosjean retired he did not get a time penalty but both drivers had ten places grid penalties applied to their starting position for the sprint race.

Di Grassi used his inherited pole position to full effect by converting it into a sprint race win, getting his title challenge on track at last.

At the start Di Grassi moved away into the lead that he would never be challenged for, but behind Fillippi and Valsecchi resumed their feature race fight but it was to end at the first corner when Valsecchi was spun around and made contact with Zuber, was the unlucky victim as he had his rear tyre shredded and limped back to the pits.

This gave Petrov a chance to jump for eighth up to third as he slotted in behind second placed Villa as Di Grassi disappeared at the front.

While Petrov was on the move so was his team-mate. Grosjean’s ten place penalties had dropped him to twenty sixth and last but after just one lap he was up to thirteenth place and then by lap two he was up to twelfth but that is where his progress stopped as he found himself unable to pass Parente.

Di Grassi was unchallenged and won easily from Villa and Petrov. The ART Grand Prix cars ran in formation for most of the race with Hulkenberg leading Maldonado home for fourth and fifth with Valerio taking the last point for sixth.

His win and third place coupled with Grosjean double zero score has given Petrov the lead of the championship. The Russian now has thirty three points while the Frenchman is still stuck on thirty one. D'Ambrosio is still hanging on to third place despite his scoreless weekend. He still has eighteen but right behind are Hulkenberg and Maldonado each with seventeen and Di Grassi in sixth with sixteen.

Written: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:42:49