Giorgio Pantano has blitzed the field from pole position to take an easy win in race one at his home circuit of Monza, leading Luca Filippi and Timo Glock home with a dominant display of speed and verve.

Despite slowing on the final lap Pantano was greeted by the chequered flag eight seconds ahead of his countryman, who inherited second place after Lucas di Grassi bizarrely slowed on the second last lap, allowing the field through before getting underway again and also handing title rival Glock the final spot on the podium to extend his lead in the championship.

Pantano easily held onto the top spot when the lights went out after a strong start with no wheelspin, while the rest of the field lit up their tyres in hot pursuit. The order at the front of the field was unchanged into the first chicane, but behind then chaos reigned as Adrian Zaugg was turned around by Glock as the cars bunched up in the tight corner: Zaugg, Mike Conway, and Olivier Pla were all out on the spot as the remainder of the field struggled to find a way past.

The inevitable safety car was called onto the track, and the front of the field consisted of Pantano, fellow front row starter Lucas di Grassi, Kazuki Nakajima (who sliced his way up one place as Lesmo), Vitaly Petrov, Adam Carroll, Xandi Negrao, Filippi and Bruno Senna, with Glock well back in 17th position.

With the stranded cars removed the race went live one lap later, catching out a number of drivers, including Carroll and Glock, who thought they would take the opportunity to take a free pitstop. Pantano's restart was note perfect, as was Filippi's, with the latter timing his run on Negrao perfectly to slide up a position at the chicane: unfortunately he was a little too fast as he caught Petrov unawares at the Lesmo complex and had to run wide to avoid the Russian, undoing his good work.

Nakajima was soon in for his customary early stop, coming out ahead of Karun Chandhok to put himself at the front of the already-stopped queue. With Pantano setting fastest laps at the front of the field it opened the floodgates, with Senna, Filippi, Negrao, di Grassi and Petrov all pitting over the next few laps, the latter suffering a stuck tyre to undo his excellent qualifying performance.

With Pantano well ahead of the remaining non-stoppers his real challenger was still di Grassi, who was sixth on track ahead of Negrao and Nakajima and waiting for the stops to shake out. The Italian was still easily the fastest man on track, and there seemed to be little chance of anyone derailing the latest in a long line of victories at the track.

But on lap thirteen Markus Niemala was very slow into the chicane with Roldan Rodriguez and Andi Zuber right on his tail: the Spaniard was tapped by the Finnish rookie and Zuber took his chance to get by both, but Rodriguez came back and the pair collided at the second chicane, spinning in unison with Zuber getting away again but Rodriguez beached on the high kerb, prompting another safety car period.

Pantano's engineer was immediately onto the radio to call him in: if the Italian was quick enough he would be able to re-emerge in the lead before the safety car found him, and when second placed Ricardo Risatti also stopped Pantano's life became even easier. With no one even close enough on track the Italian came out to slow up behind the safety car, with Risatti spinning behind him at Ascari on cold tyres, and Pantano's job was effectively done.

When the race went live again Pantano was easily able to hold onto his lead ahead of di Grassi, Negrao, Filippi, Nakajima and Senna, but further back Glock's never say die attitude had pushed him up to ninth place, right on the tail of Chandhok and Andy Soucek, who was trying desperately to hold on to the final points paying position. Nakajima seemed to cut the chicane to get ahead of Filippi and hold station, but the action was to come further around the track.