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Kobayashi inherits sprint race win

GP2 Asia champion Romain Grosjean threw away his first main series victory in Barcelona's sprint race on Sunday, when he was given a drive-through penalty for over-aggressive defending from Kamui Kobayashi, who inherited the win

Grosjean started fourth but climbed up to second by the first corner as Kobayashi squeezed Sebastien Buemi onto the grass on the run to Turn 1, dropping Buemi to third, and third-placed starter Vitaly Petrov was slow off the line.

Grosjean took two laps to line up Kobayashi and passed him with ease going into Turn 1 at the start of lap three. He pulled away by over 7secs when his lead was negated by a safety car as Giacomo Ricci spun and stalled at the chicane.

Just before the restart, Grosjean locked up and understeered off at the chicane, leaving him prone to attack from Kobayashi on the start/finish straight. Grosjean chose the inside line to defend, and Kobayashi pulled to the outside. Grosjean then chose to move left as well, squeezing the Japanese onto the kerb.

The stewards took a dim view of this second defensive movement, and took little time in slapping him with a drive-through penalty. He peeled off into the pits on the penultimate lap, allowing Kobayashi to stroke home to his third sprint race win (counting GP2 Asia).

Sebastien Buemi drove well to hold Giorgio Pantano at bay throughout the race to take second. Bruno Senna finished fourth to take the joint lead of the championship with yesterday's winner Alvaro Parente, who lost time on the opening lap when Luca Filippi hit Karun Chandhok into a spin in front of him at Turn 3.

Davide Valsecchi finished fifth, with Javier Villa just holding off Parente by a matter of hundredths for the final point.

Pos Driver                Team                      Gap
 1. Kamui Kobayashi       DAMS                40:27.229
 2. Sebastien Buemi       Arden                  +1.176
 3. Giorgio Pantano       Racing Engineering     +1.962
 4. Bruno Senna           iSport                 +2.808
 5. Davide Valsecchi      Durango                +3.501
 6. Javier Villa          Racing Engineering     +8.480
 7. Alvaro Parente        Super Nova             +8.573
 8. Mike Conway           Trident                +9.593
 9. Ben Hanley            Campos                +11.469
10. Yelmer Buurman        Arden                 +16.974
11. Adrian Valles         FMS                   +22.871
12. Milos Pavlovic        BCN                   +23.360
13. Romain Grosjean       ART                   +23.558
14. Ho-Pin Tung           Trident               +25.486
15. Jerome D'Ambrosio     DAMS                  +47.929
16. Diego Nunes           DPR                    +1 lap

Not classified

    Driver                Team                     Laps
    Pastor Maldonado      Piquet Sports         22 laps
    Andi Zuber            Piquet Sports         22 laps
    Karun Chandhok        iSport                18 laps
    Giacomo Ricci         DPR                   18 laps
    Vitaly Petrov         Campos                15 laps
    Alberto Valerio       Durango               14 laps
    Roldan Rodriguez      FMS                   13 laps
    Paolo Nocera          BCN                   12 laps
    Luca Filippi          ART                    3 laps
    
    
Fastest lap, Grosjean 1:29.204 on lap 5

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