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ART driver Nico Hulkenburg wrapped up the GP2 Series crown at Monza, with one round still to go, eschewing going flat-out for wins in favour of patiently picking up the points he needed to secure the title ahead of dogged Vitaly Petrov.

Feature Race

The GP2 gang turned up at Monza once again missing one of their 13 teams. This time, it was Durango that had been forced to pull out of the event. Stefano Coletti's violent crash at Spa-Francorchamps in the previous round had left the team with only a single chassis ready to race in Monza. They duly entered that single car for Coletti, but then found that the Italian was still unfit to drive after his crash. Ergo, no team for the Monza races.

Vitaly Petrov, the only real challenger left for Hulkenburg after the departure of Romain Grosjean to the Renault F1 team, gave his all to try and keep the championship alive, dominating the qualifying session to take pole position in his Barwa Addax car by almost four tenths of a second, which is a virtual lifetime in the single-make formula of GP2. The iSport car of Giedo van der Garde started in second, with Hulkenburg in third place.

The feature race itself, scheduled for directly after the F1 qualifying session on Saturday, was delayed when a sudden downpour soaked the track as the cars sat on the dummy grid. The rain, though, eventually relented, and the race was run in damp, but drying conditions.

Petrov led the early stages, with van der Garde on his tail but unable to find a way past with the track still wet when the cars moved off the racing line. The crucial point of the race turned out to be the timing of their compulsory pit stops. Van der Garde came in with just three laps of the race remaining, and moved into the lead after Petrov made his own stop.

Any hope that Petrov had about fighting back never came to fruition, as newcomer with the DPR team Johnny Cecotto Jr contrived to crash at the Lesmos, meaning that the final portion of the race was run behind the safety car.

Van der Garde, then, took his third win of the year, and his first in a feature race, finishing ahead of Petrov, who just about kept the title battle alive with second. Lucas di Grassi (Racing Engineering) put in a drive that reminded everyone of his talent that seems set to be wasted away from Formula One by coming through from 15th on the grid to finish third, with Jerome D'Ambrosio (DAMS) and Edoardo Mortara (Arden) but in similarly impressive drives from 21st and 22nd on the grid to come home 4th and 5th respectively.

Hulkenburg had a ragged, nervy afternoon, perhaps mindful that a retirement in the damp conditions would compromise his whole weekend given that the sprint race grid was formed from the feature race finishing order, and finished down in 6th, not yet with both hands on the title.

Alvaro Parente initially came home 7th for Ocean Racing, but he was penalised after the race for cutting the Monza chicanes too often, and slipped down the order. Javier Villa was promoted to 7th for Super Nova, while Luis Razia inherited his first ever GP2 point, and pole for the sprint race, with 8th for the Coloni team.

11 Alvaro Parente (Ocean Racing) +59.087, 12 Andreas Zuber (Coloni) +1:09.511, 13 Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) +1:11.089, 14 Davide Valsecchi (Barwa Addax) +1:11.994, 15 Dani Clos (Racing Engineering) +1:48.139, 16 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) +1 lap, 17 Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) +1 lap, 18 Johnny Cecotto Jr (DPR) +1 lap, 19 Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) +3 laps, 20 Michael Herck (DPR) +3 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 18 laps, R Sergio Perez (Arden) 6 laps, R Pastor Maldonado (ART Grand Prix) 6 laps, R Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) 0 laps.

Sprint Race

The sprint race saw Razia, starting from his first GP2 pole, take a comfortable lights-to-flag win for the Coloni team, who achieved a remarkable turnaround in fortunes just two weeks after their cars had been impounded ahead of the Belgian rounds of the series because of a legal dispute over the takeover of the former Fisichella Motorsport team.

But the real story surrounded Hulkenburg, who wrapped up the title with the final round in Portugal to spare by taking third place, the first time in the history of GP2 that the title has not gone all the way to the last meeting of the season. He had only needed a point to be sure of the title, but he secured the title comfortably in the end.

Razia held off the challenge of di Grassi, who jumped up from 6th on the grid to second by the first corner, to become the tenth different winner of a GP2 race so far this season, with di Grassi having to settle for second ahead of the gleeful Hulkenburg.

D'Ambrosio took fourth place, ahead of Petrov, who had been running with Hulkenburg early on, but dropped back after a mistake. Van der Garde backed up his feature race with with the final point in 6th.

The race was marred by a spectacular crash involving Diego Nunes and sometime Williams tester Dani Clos, with the pair colliding on the first lap and Clos ending unhurt, but upside down, in the gravel at the Lesmos.

The series now heads to a final, standalone race away from the F1 crowd next weekend, where the drivers will race around the new Algarve track in Portugal. Minor issues like the teams title and second in the standings remain up for grabs, but the big prize has already gone to Hulkenburg, who will now be feeling very confident of an F1 drive in 2010 with Williams indeed, and rightly so.

11 Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) +26.254, 12 Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) +33.526, 13 Michael Herck (DPR) +35.320, 14 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) +59.622, R Pastor Maldonado (ART Grand Prix) 19 laps, R Johnny Cecotto Jr (DPR) 18 laps, R Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) 18 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 15 laps, R Andreas Zuber (Coloni) 11 laps, R Alvaro Parente (Ocean Racing) 6 laps, R Edoardo Mortara (Arden) 6 laps, R Sergio Perez (Arden) 1 lap, R Diego Nunes (iSport) 0 laps, R Dani Clos (Racing Engineering) 0 laps.

Drivers Standings -
1 Hulkenburg 90pts (Champion), 2 Petrov 68pts, 3 Di Grassi 57pts, 4 Romain Grosjean 45pts, 5 Maldonado 36pts, 6 Van der Garde 33pts, 7 D'Ambrosio 29pts, 8 Parente 27pts, 9 Filippi 24pts, 10 Perez, Villa 22pts, 12 Rodriguez 21pts, 13 Zuber 20pts, 14 Mortara 19pts, 15 Valerio 16pts, 16 Kobayashi, Valsecchi, Chandhok 10pts, 19 Razia 8pts, 20 Nunes 6pts, 21 Rigon 3pts.

Team Standings -
1 ART Grand Prix 126pts, 2 Barwa Addax 113pts, 3 Racing Engineering 57pts, 4 Super Nova 46pts, 5 Arden International 41pts, 6 iSport International, DAMS 39pts, 8 Piquet GP, Ocean Racing 37pts, 10 Coloni/Fisichella 28pts, 11 Durango 10pts, 12 Trident Racing 3pts.