Patronise F1

Championship leader, and member of the elite list of "average drivers that we at Patronise like for some reason", Giorgio Pantano, wrapped up his third win of the season so far, all three importantly coming in the proper point-awarding feature events, to extend his lead in the drivers standings.

The race itself was a pretty decent affair, Bruno Senna led away from his second pole in a row, with fellow front row man, ART's Romain Grosjean, making a hash of his getaway and dropping behind Lucas di Grassi. Grosjean fluffed turn one as well, but only ended up inconveniencing Andi Zuber, allowing Pantano up to fourth.

Senna looked in command, but mande an un-surnamelike mistake on lap four, running off the track at Stowe corner and dropping back to fifth, allowing Di Grassi to inherit the lead, from the fight between Grosjean and Pantano. The order remained the same through the mandatory stops, the big mover in the top places being Toyota tester Kamui Kobayashi, who moved into fourth place, though he later retired with mechanical issues.

Senna lost more ground in the pit stops, as di Grassi had been released into his line in the pit lane, and his avoiding action let Zuber past him. The battle forged on for second place, with Pantano harrying Grosjean hither and thither, finally making it count with a smashing effort into Abbey. Released, Pantano hunted down leader Di Grassi, who at one point had a 3.7 second lead, but saw it dwindle in the face of Pants power.

Finally, with six laps remaining, he took the lead, as the cars slid side by side through Stowe, and eventually saw Pantano past into Club. He took the flag four seconds clear of Di Grassi, with Karun Chandhok taking third after a remarkable comeback. Chandhok had started tenth, but put in a cracking drive, passing Andy Soucek the long way around at Stowe, and rinsing Luca Filippi into Brooklands in the early stages, before passing Grosjean with two laps to go.

Sebastien Buemi joined the fight for the points places, passing a tardy Senna for 5th and then grabbing 4th from Grosjean on the final lap. Senna, Zuber and Luca Filippi rounded out the points places, meaning that Filippi and Zuber would share the front row for the sprint race.

Sprint Race

After his mess-up on Saturday, Senna dominated the sprint event to narrow Pantano's championship lead, albeit only silghtly.

In wet conditions, Senna jumped ahead of the tardy-starting Andi Zuber at the lights, and passed pole sitter Luca Filippi into the Abbey chicane midway around the first tour. From there, he controlled the race, with Filippi slipping forther back behind Di Grassi and Pantano, eventually retiring.

Pantano had a mistake of his own after a few laps, which dropped him away from Di Grassi and into a battle for 3rd with Mike Conway, though he managed to win the mini-scrap. Elsewhere, the action was limited after a chunk of the field were eliminated in opening lap shenanigans.

Senna took the flag, despite a moment on the final lap when he seemed to slow, and nearly got collected in the spray by a lapped car, from Di Grassi, Pantano and Conway. Vitaly Petrov secured fifth place, while the final point went to Davide Valsecchi, making a return to the series after knackering his spine in Turkey. Valsecchi benefitted from a final lap collision involving Kamui Kobayashi, Adrian Valles and Pastor Maldonado.

The GP2 series reaches it's halfway stage here then, with Pantano eleven points ahead of Senna in the championship standings. The battle for a possible maybe test with Force India will resume in Germany in two weeks time.

Drivers Championship Standings -
1 Pantano 50pts, 2 Senna 39pts, 3 Buemi 25pts, 4 Di Grassi 24pts, 5 Grosjean 23pts, 6 Petrov 20pts, 7 Parente, Chandhok, Zuber 19pts, 10 Maldonado 18pts, 11 Conway 15pts, 12 Kobayashi 9pts, 13 Tung 7pts, 14 Rodriguez 6pts, 15 Buurman, Filippi, Valles 5pts, 18 Valsecchi, D'Ambrosio, Villa 3pts, 21 Hanley, Soucek, Carroll 1pt.