Grosjean inherits victory from Senna

Senna (iSport) was leading by over 17 seconds when he was forced to pit again with four laps remaining, dropping him out of the points and into ninth place. It also ruined his bid to finish second in the championship.

Senna was over 11 seconds clear of Grosjean, whom he had passed in brilliant style on the opening lap, when he made his first stop. He requested left-side changes over the radio, when the team had prepared to change both rears.

The only clue from the outside was his gesticulations as he approached his pit, and during the confusion only his left rear was changed a replacement left front wasn't ready.

"I was never meant to win in this championship," sighed Senna, who only missed out on tomorrow's reverse grid pole position by 0.134 seconds. "I wanted my front left changing [rather than his right rear] because I could see it was losing shape."

This promoted Grosjean to the win, who was completely oblivious to the disaster that had befallen iSport. His pass on Sebastien Buemi (Arden) eight laps from the finish turned out to be the decisive moment that won him the race.

When asked if he thought he was lucky to win, Grosjean replied: "It's not luck if someone doesn't do their job properly. I was fighting all the way, but I did think my engineer was mistaken when he told me I was leading."

Buemi finished second, complaining of damage incurred when he clashed with Grosjean at Turn 1 immediately after Romain's pitstop. Arden teammate Yelmer Buurman finished third, ahead of a closing Vitaly Petrov (Campos), Hiroki Yoshimoto - who passed two cars in the final two laps for finish fifth for Meritus - and Marco Bonanomi.

The point scorers were rounded out by Jerome d'Ambrosio and Milos Pavlovic, who will start tomorrow's sprint race from reverse grid pole.

At the end of the 34 laps, the chequered flag failed to appear. Although the race officially ended then, the cars continued to race, with Petrov passing Buurman for third on a lap that never was.

Classified:

Pos  Driver           Team                      Time
 1.  Grosjean         ART Grand Prix           59:37.711
 2.  Buemi            Trust Team Arden          + 1.933
 3.  Buurman          Trust Team Arden          + 3.549
 4.  Petrov           Campos Team               + 4.114
 5.  Yoshimoto        Qi-Meritus Mahara         + 11.364
 6.  Bonanomi         Piquet Sports             + 12.051
 7.  D'ambrosio       Dams                      + 12.596
 8.  Pavlovic         BCN Competicion           + 13.021
 9.  Senna            iSport International      + 13.155
10.  Tahinci          BCN Competicion           + 29.598
11.  Tung             Trident Racing            + 30.597
12.  Fauzy            Super Nova Racing         + 30.744
13.  Filippi          Qi-Meritus Mahara         + 31.334
14.  Valerio          Durango                   + 38.482
15.  Valsecchi        Durango                   + 47.037
16.  Rodriguez        FMS International         + 48.474
17.  Schleghelmilch   Trident Racing            + 48.575
18.  Nunes            DPR                       + 56.747
19.  Jelley           ART Grand Prix            + 90.631
20.  Ebrahim          DPR                       + 1 lap
21.  Kobayashi        Dams                      + 3 laps

Not classified:

     Driver       Team                     Laps
     Hanley       Campos Team               27
     Chandhok     iSport International      23
     Bakkerud     Super Nova Racing         19
     Puglisi      Piquet Sports             10
     Valles       FMS International          7

Fastest lap: Senna, 1:41.960 on lap 27