22/03/2008
NEWS STORY
The Russian driver, Vitaly Petrov, claimed his first GP2 Asia victory today at the end of an action-packed race that saw the leaders falter.
It was a difficult start for the front row men of the day as Karun Chandhok and Romain Grosjean both stalled on the grid and left Bruno Senna to lead the race in front of Adrian Valles and Sébastien Buemi. However, on the opening lap, the rain started to fall and the iSport driver went wide while chaos reigned at the back of the pack with five cars going off track. The race was stopped.
At the restart behind the safety car, Adrian Valles took the lead in front of Sébastien Buemi. The two men pulled clear of the rest of the pack where Grosjean and Senna fought their way back to the top. The Brazilian pushed a little too hard though and after he posted the fastest lap time, he went off track and had to retire.
Behind the two leaders, Fauzy, Tung and Petrov were fighting for third place. The Trident Racing driver eventually spun and Petrov started to attack Fauzy, but the Super Nova Racing man chose that moment to pit. While Grosjean made his way up to eighth, the leaders also came back to the pits, Buemi one lap before Valles. The FMS man got back on track just ahead of the Arden driver. The Swiss pushed really hard to try and overtake the Spaniard and unfortunately crashed into his rival. Both men had to retire immediately and left Petrov and Grosjean to lead the race ahead of BCN's Pavlovic who, on hot tyres, overtook the Frenchman, but the two cars touched in the process and Grosjean had to return to the pits for inspection.
Petrov became the clear leader after Fairuz Fauzy was held up trying to lap Nunes. Dams' Jerome d'Ambrosio fought his way from 16th to third place ahead of Durango's Valsecchi and the other Dams driver Kamui Kobayashi. The championship leader finished 9th, but still managed to salvage one point for fastest lap time. Behind Grosjean, the drivers' championship has drastically changed with Fairuz Fauzy and Vitaly Petrov taking 2nd and 3rd. Bruno Senna and Adrian Valles dropped to fourth and fifth.