Patronise F1

A new GP2 Series championship leader emerged in Istanbul, as early-season pacesetter Romain Grosjean struggled and his Barwa Addax team mate Vitaly Petrov took the victory in the big points feature race.

Vitaly Petrov took his first win of the season in the feature race, using a fabulous piece of opportunism to take advantage of a scrap between front row men Nico Hulkenburg and Luca Filippi to grab the lead and power to victory.

Hulkenburg led away from pole, with The Elbow's favourite driver Filippi on his tail. On lap three, as they enjoyed their own battle for position, both cars ran wide in the final turn and Petrov squeezed through the gap to grab a lead that he would keep to the end of the race.

He had enjoyed a lead of over ten seconds, but lost that when Alvaro Parente triggered a safety car period after spinning off at the infamous turn 8 and ending up parked across the racetrack. But when released, Petrov remained in control to take the win by some 6.7 seconds from Filippi, who took his best finish of the season in second place. Durango man Davide Valsecchi came through to finish third.

Alberto Valerio took a surprising fourth place, ahead of the the duo of ART Grand Prix drivers, the fading Hulkenburg and the brilliantly-named Pastor Maldonado. Giedo van der Garde was seventh, and Javier Villa took 8th, after falling back through the pack in the closing stages.

As for the championship leader, Romain Grosjean had an eventful race, spinning on the opening lap and dropping down the field, before retiring late on with mechanical dramas. The retirement also crippled his starting position for the sprint.

The race was filled with incidents, and featured a very high attrition rate, with the number of crashes leading to five drivers ending the race under investigation for their parts in on-track incidents, with the most notable driver penalised being seventh placed Van der Garde. The time penalty dropped him from seventh to 15th, leaving Villa in 7th and Lucas Di Grassi in 8th and on pole for the sprint, despite the Racing Engineering man damaging his front wing early on and pitting to replace it.

11 Diego Nunes (iSport) +29.712, 12 Dani Clos (Racing Eng) +31.849, 13 Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) +34.559, 14 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident Racing) +39.001, 15 Giedo van der Garde (iSport) +25.216**, R Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) 26 laps, R Romain Grosjean (Barwa Addax) 25 laps, R Edoardo Mortara (Arden) 20 laps, R Nelson Panciatici (Durango) 18 laps, R Alvaro Parente (Ocean Racing) 15 laps, R Giacomo Ricci (DPR) 14 laps, R Luiz Razia (FMS International) 13 laps, R Jerome D'Ambrosio (DAMS) 7 laps, R Michael Herck (DPR) 4 laps, R Sergio Perez (Arden) 1 lap, R Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) 1 lap.

Sprint Race

The sprint was dominated from pole by Di Grassi, who took his first win of the year after a difficult start to 2009 for the man who was among the pre-season title favourites.

He finished clear of fellow front row man Javier Villa, who ran close to the Italian for the whole race, but never got close enough to mount an attack. Petrov came through from 8th on the grid to take the final podium slot, with the points gained from that elevating him into a two point championship lead in the process.

Nico Hulkenburg was 4th, again coming home ahead of his team mate Maldonado, while Alberto Valerio took the final point in the short sprint in 6th.

Romain Grosjean again had a disappointing race, struggling to 12th place after being out of position on the grid after his race one DNF. Despite his sensational start to the season, Grosjean has now failed to score points for three consecutive races.

The championship will move on to Silverstone in two weeks time, with the Barwa Addax team in a dominant position. Petrov leads his nearest rival from another team, Jerome D'Ambrosio, by 15 points in the standings, while the team are 30 points ahead of the field in the teams standings.

11 Diego Nunes (iSport) +28.671, 12 Romain Grosjean (Barwa Addax) +32.766, 13 Giedo van der Garde (iSport) +34.631, 14 Karun Chandhok (Ocean) +35.446, 15 Jerome d'Ambrosio (DAMS) +40.023, 16 Sergio Perez (Arden) +41.171, 17 Roldan Rodríguez (Piquet GP) +42.313, 18 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) +52.238, 19 Andreas Zuber (Fisichella) +1:02.332, 20 Luiz Razia (Fisichella) +1:37.768, R Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) 19 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 18 laps, R Giacomo Ricci (DPR) 14 laps, R Nelson Panciatici (Durango) 12 laps, R Michael Herck (DPR) 3 laps, R Davide Valsecchi (Durango) 0 laps.

Drivers Championship -
1 Petrov 33pts, 2 Grosjean 31pts, 3 D'Ambrosio 18pts, 4 Maldonado, Hulkenburg 17pts, 6 Di Grassi 16pts, 7 Filippi 13pts, 8 Mortara 10pts, 9 Zuber 8pts, 10 Villa 7pts, 11 Valsecchi, Valerio 6pts, 13 Van der Garde 5pts, 14 Kobayashi 3pts, 15 Chandhok 2pts.

Teams Championship -
1 Barwa Addax 64pts, 2 ART Grand Prix 34pts, 3 DAMS 21pts, 4 Super Nova 20pts, 5 Racing Engineering 16pts, 6 Arden International 10pts, 7 Fisichella Motor Sport 8pts, 8 Durango, Piquet GP 6pts, 10 iSport 5pts, 11 Ocean Racing 2pts.
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