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Feature Race

Lucas di Grassi, touted as the man in form by informed GP2 followers, took his first win of the season and 4th podium in seven dries this campaign, to climb into third in the Championship despite only having driven in 7 of the 13 races to that point.  The Brazilian had started from third on the grid, behind first time polesitter Romain Grosjean and Andi Zuber, but was already in the lead by the exit of the first turn, with his team mate Vitaly Petrov following him past Zuber into second, until he slid wide on lap 4 and dropped back.

By this time Grosjean had ruined both his own race and that of Pantano by hitting the Italian on the opening lap, spinning both drivers down the order and condemning Pantano to a lowly 14th place finish.  Petrov’s retirement on lap 23 compounded Giorgio’s problems as it allowed Bruno Senna to finish third (having gained 4 places with a meteoric start), taking a big bite out of Pantano’s lead in the Championship.

The Brazilian’s team-mate Chandhok came home 4th ahead of Pastor Maldonado, who had started last after crashing in practice and being unable to set a qualifying time, with the Venezuelan also taking the point for fastest lap (Grosjean actually set the quickest time but was ineligible in 17th).  Mike Conway, Sebastien Buemi and Andy Soucek completed the top 8.

Sprint Race

Soucek led from Pole for 12 laps ahead of Buemi, Maldonado and Senna.  Behind them di Grassi spoilt his successful run by running into Conway on the second lap, earning a drive through penalty for his troubles as the Brit spun down the order, promoting Maldonado to third.  Di Grassi would eventually come home tenth and pick up one point for fastest lap.

Buemi was happy to sit about a second behind Soucek until the Spaniard made a mistake at turn 12, allowing Maldonado to close on him.  Sadly for the Venezuelan he became the first South American to survive late heartache on Sunday, as his car cried enough with just three laps remaining, promoting Senna into third for the second day in a row.

Behind them, the first of the ex-F1 boys was not Pantano who came home fifth – admittedly a good result from 14th, but meaning he lost a further 2 points of his title lead - but Sakon Yamamoto, who drove a steady race to take 4th to break his duck for the season in his 4th drive for ART.  Completing the scorers was Pantano’s team mate Javier Villa, only 0.6 seconds behind.

Grosjean had been relegated to the back of the grid after his indiscretion in the feature race, and could only climb to 12th after yet another incident with Alvaro Parente, which could leave him in trouble with the authorities yet again.  And Luca Filippi, derided in my recent half term review, completed another pathetic weekend by being unclassified in race two (having finished 15th in race 1).

The field now move onto the all new street circuit at Valencia in three weeks time.  Many of the GP2 drivers took the opportunity to drive the circuit during the weekend between the German and Hungarian races in a variety of GT and Spanish Formula 3 cars, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes, and whether Pantano can halt the charge of Senna.

Drivers Championship Standings -
1 Pantano 65pts, 2 Senna 58pts, 3 Di Grassi 39pts, 4 Grosjean 36pts, 5 Buemi 34pts, 6 Zuber 32pts, 7 Chandhok 31pts, 8 Parente, Maldonado 26pts, 10 Petrov 20pts, 11 Conway 18pts, 12 Kobayashi 10pts, 13 Soucek 9pts, 14 Tung 7pts, 15 Rodríguez, Villa 6pts, 17 Buurman, Filippi, Vallés 5pts, 20 Yamamoto, Valsecchi, d'Ambrosio  3pts, 23 Hanley, Carroll 1pt