29/09/2007
NEWS STORY
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Vitaly Petrov blew almost every other driver away at the start of race one, on dry tyres in changeable conditions, to claim his first GP2 win ahead of teammate Giorgio Pantano, who just held on from Kazuki Nakajima to bring back a one-two finish for Campos Grand Prix at their home circuit.
The three drivers made the most of a chaotic race start with some brave racing ahead of some of their conservatively minded rivals who were on wet weather tyres, tearing away as the conditions improved to fill the podium despite a collision between Pantano and Nakajima as they crossed the line on the last lap.
With a downpour affecting the support race earlier in the afternoon and heavy, black clouds covering the circuit as the teams below were unsure which tyres to pick for the start: Timo Glock and Luca Filippi went conservative from second and third on the grid respectively, while Nakajima rolled the dice and started on slicks from pole. As the lights went out there was still a light shower falling, and turn one was always going to difficult considering the difference of compounds all through the field.
The Japanese driver pulled easily away from the grid in first after Glock and Filippi bogged down, holding back the rest of the pack: Nicolas Lapierre was also slow away from fourth and was immediately tagged by a fast charging Lucas di Grassi, with the Frenchman out on the spot as the Brazilian headed towards turn one. Faster still though were Roldan Rodriguez, who slipped through into the lead after finding a short cut at the back of the circuit, while Petrov and Pantano were blindingly fast from 8th and 10th respectively, along with Kohei Hirate who started between the teammates.
At the end of the first lap the rain had mostly stopped and the order was Rodriguez, Nakajima, Petrov, Hirate, Pantano, Glock and Filippi, with Marcos Martinez in an astonishing 8th position despite starting 19th, clearly gaining the benefit of local knowledge through the mayhem. Rodriguez was soon dropping backwards, letting his rivals through to undo the false advantage he found, but he was soon completely out of the running after being handed a drive through penalty for cutting his lap short.
Petrov was clearly on a mission, pushing with all his might to get by new race leader Nakajima, and when Pantano eased his way by Hirate to put himself on his teammate's tail the 3 drivers streaked away from the rest of the field, who now realised what a mistake they'd made by starting on wets, which was being forced home to them as Martinez sliced his way through the field to fifth.
Filippi and di Grassi were the first men into the pits to rectify their mistake, opening the floodgates for the rest of the field to follow their lead. The move did no favours for the Brazilian though, as he was soon stuck in the gravel and out of the race after pushing too hard to get back on terms with the field, and in particular title rival Glock, losing the back of his car and putting himself into retirement.
So fast was the pace of the first four drivers that they had caught up to Mikhail Aleshin, who had already stopped, on lap 6: unaware that anyone could already be lapping him the Russian did his countryman a huge favour by holding up Nakajima for most of the lap, allowing the Campos duo and Hirate to put themselves on his tail and running by the Japanese driver to set up the one-two finish, Petrov on the inside at turn one and Pantano at the next corner.
With di Grassi out Glock now had nothing to lose, but decided on a conservative approach to his pitstop, staying out possibly too long on wet tyres and losing a mountain of time to the race leaders in the process: with cars still falling off the track (including Hirate from 4th) he clearly decided to stay out until the track was completely dry, but he was also putting himself out of any chance of getting back on terms with the front runners. The German eventually stopped on lap 13 for slicks, but he came out well behind Filippi, the first of the already pitted drivers.
It was around this stage that the newly stopped drivers on slicks started setting fastest laps, pointing out the obvious move for the stragglers who were still on wet tyres (although Bruno Senna had to come in 2 laps after his first stop to remove the wets his team had somehow put on his car), but at the front Petrov was just inching away from his teammate, who was equally pulling away ever so slightly from Nakajima.
The top three came in on almost consecutive laps, starting with Nakajima on lap 15 and then Pantano and Petrov, all 3 holding station on track thanks to the huge amounts of time they found in the opening stages: so large was the gap back to Martinez that after the stops it was still around 20 seconds, while the Spaniard had another 30 seconds or so in hand over Filippi, who was fast but clearly unable to do anything about the massive gap in front of him.
The Italian was also being bothered by Borja Garcia, who was all over his rear but unable to find a way by for lap after lap after lap, withAleshin and Andy Soucek further back but filling in the points paying positions ahead of Glock, who had a 20 second gap to reduce just to get a sniff of 8th place.
But a few things conspired to help the championship leader: Bruno Senna spun off from behind him, removing any threat from further back, while Filippi's car slowly started to look terminal, eventually having to wave Garcia and then Soucek through as he hoped against hope that his car would hold on: it didn't, and as Glock (closely shadowed by Javier Villa) carved time, and eventually 8th position, away fromAleshin, Filippi could hold onto his evil handling car no longer and was soon beached in the gravel and watching his rivals go by.
And so it finished: Vitaly Petrov controlled the pace from the front to claim his first win in the series, while teammate Giorgio Pantano almost gave it all away after slowing slightly in the closing stages, culminating in a dramatic collision between the Italian and Kazuki Nakajima, with the official timing recording the difference between them as 0.0 seconds in Pantano's favour.
Marcos Martinez was the next man to cross the line to the obvious delight of the crowd, who roared his name as he made his way back to the pits. Fellow locals Borja Garcia and Andy Soucek were the next men to run down the front straight, ahead of Timo Glock and tomorrow's poleman Javier Villa, with Karun Chandhok claiming the point for fastest lap after stopping again for fresh tyres.
And it was the German who was probably the happiest man in the paddock despite the Campos drivers swinging their trophies like babies in unison: the two points for seventh gave him a comfortable four point gap in the championship with just tomorrow's race left to run. With his title rival starting well down the field Glock has one hand on the championship title, and the other is closing in fast.
Glock (81 points) now leads the Drivers' Championship by 4 points from di Grassi, with Filippi third (58) ahead of Pantano (57).
In the Team Championship, iSport has 111 points, followed by ART Grand Prix (87), Campos Grand Prix (78) and Super nova (77).
Provided by the GP2 Series Media Service
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