UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > GP2: Round 4

Grosjean retakes advange

GP2 rolled into the home of British Motorsport at Silverstone for the fourth round of their championship. Vitaly Petrov currently leads the championship from his Barwa Addax team-mate Romain Grosjean by just two points; while DAMS driver Jerome D'Ambrosio is a further thirteen points behind Grosjean.

Grosjean had the best start to the weekend by topping the opening practise session. Andres Zuber was second for FMS and Ocean Racing Technology driver Karun Chandhok was third just over half a second slower than Grosjean.

In qualifying Grosjean was fastest again, claming pole and the two points to move him back on to the top of the drivers standings. He was joined on the front row by Alberto Valerio of Piquet Sports, with Alvaro Parente of Ocean Racing Technology and D'Ambrosio lining up behind, on the second row.

The feature race was won in surprising circumstances by Alberto Valerio of Piquet Sport, who used a slow Grosjean and a stalled D’Ambrosio to move through the field.

He started on the front row allowing him to get a clear start and slot neatly into second place behind
Grosjean, as behind him D’Ambrosio stalled for fourth place, causing the rest of the field to scatter in avoidance.

The loser of the line was championship leader Petrov. He was delayed by avoiding D’Ambrosio and then after slight contact from another car he was sent spinning at turn one and fell right to the back of the field.

Once Valerio had got into his rhythm the battle at the front was only going to end one way. With every lap he got closer and once he was locked onto the rear wing the pass was easy.

Grosjean was struggling for pace and it was not long before third placed Lucas Di Grassi had also caught and passed him in his Racing Engineering machine, but in passing he sent Grosjean fling off the track and across the grass at Becketts, with the Frenchman slotting back in just in front of Hulkenberg.

Sergio Perez of Arden was the first to make his stop, with nothing to lose after starting right at the back of the field after a qualifying disaster; it was to be an inspired decision.

Hulkenberg was the first of the front runners to stop he was stuck in fourth place unable to find a way past Grosjean who was still struggling, and did so at the perfect time and used the mandatory stops to jump ahead of Grosjean and Di Grassi to take second, Di Grassi was in third and after his inspired pit stop coupled with the train behind Grosjean, Perez was into fourth place now ahead of Grosjean.

In the closing stages of the race the order was unchanged with Valerio looking untouchable at the head of the field with Hulkenberg dropping back with plumes of smoke coming out of the rear of his car.

Di Grassi eventually caught him and after a few attempts he was finally able to pass leaving Hulkenberg at the mercy of Perez, who unlike Hulkenberg did not appear to be struggling with worn tyres.

Perez could not find a way past and had to settle with a very unlikely, however well deserved fourth place. Grosjean found more pace after he pit stop but the damage was done and he could not recover from fifth. Karun Chandhok was sixth, ahead of Pastor Maldonado of ART Grand Prix who slipped inside Zuber on the final lap for seventh dropping Zuber to eighth.

That pass gave Maldonado second on the grid for the sprint race on Sunday alongside Zuber who did not get away as well as his Venezuelan counterpart giving Maldonado his second win of the season.

Both the front row drivers got good starts but Maldonado got a better one and slotted into the lead of the race to set of on his Sunday Drive to victory.

Behind the front pair, Di Grassi stalled on the grid causing a repeat of the Saturday Scramble seen around D’Ambrosio in the Feature Race. Chandhok beat Grosjean to take third while behind Hulkenberg slotted into fifth beating Perez into turn one and all of a sudden the points were settled.

After the first few laps the field then stretched out behind with nobody close enough to anybody else to make a move.

Late in the race Racing Engineering driver Dani Clos and his Arden counterpart Luiz Razia made contact, both cars were slightly damaged, Razia got back to the pit lane but Clos lost the rear end of his car before stalling in the middle of Vale requiring a safety car that would take up the reaming three laps of the race, leaving Maldonado to follow the safety car to victory lane.

The result means that Grosjean had regained his place at the top of the standings; he now had forty points leaving Petrov in second with thirty three after his scoreless weekend. Behind the Brawa Addax pair comes the ART Grand Prix pair with Hulkenberg and Maldonado tied on twenty six points.

Written: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:03:06