Grosjean wins in Auto GP at Navarra

Pole-sitter Natacha Gachnang made a great start and comfortably led the opening lap. But she was outbraked by GP2 racer Giacomo Ricci (RP), who went on to build a comfortable lead as Gachnang did a cool-headed job of fending off the Super Nova car of Luca Filippi.

However, when the Italian was taken out by the spinning Alexander Sims, Grosjean instantly applied the pressure on Gachnang and took the place. He then carved into Ricci's lead at an impressive rate and pulled off a brilliant around-the-outside pass through the fast Turn 1.

He disappeared up the road, while Ricci had his hands full defending from Gravity driver Jan Charouz. The Italian employed some Schumacher-esque defensive moves to keep the Czech at bay. Coming out of the final corner for the last time Charouz got excellent traction and drew alongside. They crossed the line in an IndyCar-style photo finish, Ricci taking the place by just 0.01s.

Grosjean's DAMS team-mate Duncan Tappy took fourth, Adrien - son of Ferrari F1 race winner Patrick - Tambay was fifth, while Jonny Reid - who made another terrible start for Super Nova - took sixth. Gachnang produced easily her best drive of the year and was unfortunate to just miss out on a point in seventh.

Pos  Driver            Team               Time/Gap
 1.  Romain Grosjean   DAMS             26m56.584s
 2.  Giacomo Ricci     RP                + 11.492s
 3.  Jan Charouz       Charouz-Gravity   + 11.509s
 4.  Duncan Tappy      DAMS              + 12.236s
 5.  Adrien Tambay     Charouz-Gravity   + 13.996s
 6.  Jonny Reid        Super Nova        + 17.332s
 7.  Natacha Gachnang  Charouz-Gravity   + 19.991s
 8.  Fabio Onidi       Lazarus           + 20.462s
 9.  Carlos Iaconelli  Durango           + 21.270s
10.  Edoardo Piscopo   DAMS              + 38.571s
11.  Stefano Bizzarri  RP                  + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Luca Filippi      Super Nova       6 laps
     Alexander Sims    Charouz-Gravity  6 laps
     Julian Leal       Trident          1 lap