Patronise F1

The GP2 boys put on a spectacular show in Belgium, with on and off-track incidents dominating proceedings. By the end of the weekend, though, Nico Hulkenburg had all-but secured the GP2 drivers championship for the 2009 season.

Feature Race

The drama had started at the track on Friday morning, after the newly re-christened Coloni Motorsport team (née Fisichella Motorsport) had their cars and equipment impounded by lawyers acting for the team's former driver Andy Soucek. Although Paolo Coloni, the team's boss, insisted that Soucek's gripe was with the former owners during it's Fisichella Motorsport days rather than with him, the cars remained locked up for the qualifying session, and Colini's driver pairing of Andi Zuber and Luis Razia took no part in the weekend,

So it was 24 cars, rather than the traditional 26, that took to the track for the weekend, though only 23 lined up at the start of the feature race after Franck Perera had failed to qualify. Continuing the theme of surprise pole-sitters that dominated the weekend after Force India's heroics in the F1 session, top spot was taken by Ocean Racing and Alvaro Parente, who had promised much when he arrived in GP2 at the start of 2008, but has thusfar failed to live up to his hype.

Nevertheless, he delivered in Belgium, as he led away from the start and took the chequered flag while leading the field behind the safety car, in what was an incident-filled race.

The safety car was required after a heavy crash for Stefano Coletti's Durango car at Eau Rouge, the Monaco man going straight on into the barriers and getting trapped him his car. Although he was conscious after the crash, he was still being extracted from the car as the chequered flag fell. The team confirmed that he had only suffered heavy bruising, but the damage to his car meant that he was out for the rest of the weekend.

Parente won from points leader Nico Hulkenburg, who had ever really been close enough to challenge the Ocean Racing man when they were racing, despite dealing with second placed grid sitter Lucas di Grassi (Racing Engineering) without too much hassle. The eight points Hulkenburg took for second place though, coupled with the retirement of his only remaining rival, Vitaly Petrov, who suffered an engine failure in his Barwa Addax car just after the halfway point of the race.

Di Grassi took third ahead of Pastor Maldonado in the second ART Grand Prix car, with Roldan Rodriguez inheriting 5th for Piquet Sport after Diego Nunes (iSport) was penalised 25 seconds after the race for cutting the Bus Stop chicane. Giedo van der Garde was 6th in the second iSport car.

Elsewhere, there were plenty of incidents during the race, with Luca Filippi (Super Nova) getting in a typically him-like accident when he spun into the path of Davide Valsecchi (Addax) at Les Combes, triggering an early race safety car. Alberto Valerio was tapped into the wall at the same corner on the opening lap, while Karun Chandhok and Davide Rigon collided on lap 7. Only 11 of the 24 starters completed the full race distance.

The race itself was overshadowed by an accident prior to the start, when Ricardo Teixeira's car got tangled around a wheel gun as it left for the dummy grid and brought part of the garage down onto the head of mechanic Vasco Rossi, who was hospitalised by the incident.

11 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +35.474, 12 Stefano Coletti (Durango) +2 laps, 13 Javier Villa (Super Nova) +3 laps, R Jerome D'Ambrosio (DAMS) 20 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 13 laps, R Davide Valsecchi (Barwa Addax) 13 laps, R Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) 7 laps, R Davide Rigon (Trident Racing) 7 laps, R Vitaly Petrov (Barwa Addax) 6 laps, R Michael Herck (DPR) 0 laps, R Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) 0 laps, R Ricardo Teixeira (Trident Racing) 0 laps, R Sergio Perez (Arden) 0 laps.

Sprint Race

The shorter, but no less chaotic, sprint race on Sunday morning was won by iSport's Giedo van der Garde, who took his second win of the 2009 season after leaping past pole sitter Edoarde Mortara's Arden car to lead into La Source on the first lap. Despite the carnage that unfolded behind him, van der Garde kept his nose clean and wrapped up a comfortable win.

He eventually finished over three seconds ahead of the Piquet GP car of Roldan Rodriguez, with Diego Nunes taking third place in the second iSport car, who kept his head to take the final podium spot despite late-race pressure from Sergio Perez (Arden), who put in one of the drives of the season to finish 4th having started from the back of the grid.

The points places were completed by Trident Racing's Davide Rigon and the recovering Vitaly Petrov, who picked up the final point to trim Nico Hulkenburg's lead by the smallest of amounts.

Hulkenburg himself failed to register on the final results, having been taken out of the race by Racing Engineering's Dani Clos on the opening lap, while later on in the race, the second Racing Engineering car of Lucas Di Grassi collided with Mortara at the Bus Stop. Both Racing Engineering drivers were handed ten place grid penalties for Monza after the race for causing the incidents.

The accidents mounted up during the race. Pastor Maldonado crashed at Les Combes on lap two, in an incident that also involved the DAMS car of Kamui Kobayashi and Mortara, who both managed to continue. Elsewhere, feature race winner Alvaro Parente dropped out after suffering an engine failure.

At the end of the weekend then, Hulkenburg has extended his championship lead to 27 points, with only 40 points left to play for over the remaining weekends at Monza and the season-closing race at the Algarve track in Portugal. The Williams tester now looks odds-on to follow in his namesake Nico Rosberg's footsteps and take the GP2 title.

11 Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) +25.291, 12 Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) +36.045, 13 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +48.746, 14 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident Racing) +54.779, R Edoardo Mortara (Arden) 4 laps, R Lucas Di Grassi (Racing Engineering) 4 laps, R Alvaro Parente (Ocean Racing) 2 laps, R Pastor Maldonado (ART Grand Prix) 1 lap, R Nico Hulkenberg (ART Grand Prix) 0 laps, R Dani Clos (Racing Engineering) 0 laps, R Jerome d'Ambrosio (DAMS) 0 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 0 laps.

Drivers Standings -
1 Hulkenburg 83pts, 2 Petrov 56pts, 3 di Grassi 46pts, 4 Romain Grosjean 45pts, 5 Maldonado 36pts, 6 Parente 27pts, 7 Filippi 24pts, 8 van der Garde, Perez 22pts, 10 Rodriguez, d'Ambrosio 21pts, 12 Andi Zuber, Villa 20pts, 14 Alberto Valerio 16pts, 15 Mortara 14pts, 16 Kobayashi, Valsecchi, Chandhok 10pts, 19 Nunes 6pts, 20 Rigon 3pts.

Teams Standings -
1 ART Grand Prix 119pts, 2 Barwa Addax 101pts, 3 Racing Engineering 46pts, 4 Super Nova Racing 44pts, 5 Piquet GP, Ocean Racing 37pts, 7 Arden International 36pts, 8 DAMS 31pts, 9 iSport International 28pts, 10 Fisichella Motorsport/Scuderia Coloni 20pts, 11 Durango 10pts, 12 Trident Racing 3pts.