Romain Grosjean charges to Silverstone GP2 sprint race win and extends points lead
Romain Grosjean cemented his place at the top of the GP2 standings with a dominant victory in race two at Silverstone
The championship leader climbed from fifth to third on the first lap, passing Sam Bird and stalled front row starter Stefano Coletti (Trident).
Grosjean stayed there, just behind leaders Dani Clos and Giedo van der Garde, until lap 15 when he passed the Dutchman - his closest title challenger - with ease into Village corner.
Two corners later Clos (Racing Engineering) locked up and went off at Brooklands, losing the small lead that he had been able to build over Addax's van der Garde in the first half of the race. One lap later Grosjean was right on his tail, and the DAMS driver took the lead with relative ease into Copse corner.
From there, Grosjean was able to run more than one second per lap quicker than his pursuers when he wanted to, and he cruised away to win by more than seven seconds.
Clos kept it together to hang on to second ahead of van der Garde, while race one podium finisher Marcus Ericsson completed a good weekend by snatching fourth from iSport team-mate Sam Bird in the closing stages.
Bird was in trouble by this point, and he then lost fifth to race one winner Jules Bianchi's ART car on the penultimate lap.
Results - 21 laps: Pos Driver Team Time/Gap 1. Romain Grosjean DAMS 36m42.650s 2. Dani Clos Racing Engineering + 7.019s 3. Giedo van der Garde Addax + 7.760s 4. Marcus Ericsson iSport + 8.433s 5. Jules Bianchi ART + 9.427s 6. Sam Bird iSport + 12.924s 7. Christian Vietoris Racing Engineering + 20.853s 8. Esteban Gutierrez ART + 21.888s 9. Alvaro Parente Carlin + 22.128s 10. Charles Pic Addax + 23.154s 11. Fabio Leimer Rapax + 23.296s 12. Luca Filippi Super Nova + 23.624s 13. Rodolfo Gonzalez Trident + 31.357s 14. Luiz Razia AirAsia + 32.330s 15. Fairuz Fauzy Super Nova + 32.780s 16. Jolyon Palmer Arden + 33.447s 17. Davide Valsecchi AirAsia + 34.778s 18. Michael Herck Coloni + 38.139s 19. Max Chilton Carlin + 39.168s 20. Josef Kral Arden + 40.754s 21. Julian Leal Rapax + 1m25.700s 22. Stefano Coletti Trident + 1 lap 23. Pal Varhaug DAMS + 1 lap Retirements: Johnny Cecotto Ocean 10 laps Kevin Ceccon Coloni 6 laps
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