Filippi wins feature race at Sentul

Filippi assumed the lead midway through the race when Bruno Senna was slapped with a drive-through penalty for a safety car infringement. The Italian had a 4.5-second lead with 15 laps to go, but Buemi homed in during the final laps and Filippi was just a whisker ahead at the flag.

"I was very quick until the last 10 laps but at the end I definitely wasn't the quickest," he admitted. "I struggled a bit and the last laps were a real fight.

"But I am very happy to win for the team because they are the only Asian team and it's nice for all the people that are here cheering us on."

Senna took a gamble early in the race when a safety car period, starting on lap two, brought all the other front runners in to make their mandatory pit stop. The Brazilian stayed out, hoping to make better use of the two new sets of tyres.

"There was no point in coming in for new tyres on lap two. I knew they wouldn't last the whole race at their full pace because the abrasion here is way too much. I tried to pull out a big gap so that I could make my stop later and hopefully pass them all back when they had no tyres left."

But it wasn't to be for Senna as another safety car period wiped out his advantage over those that had stopped, and he was then handed a drive-through penalty on the restart for allegedly passing the safety car before it had crossed the line at the beginning of the pit lane.

That dropped him to 10th and it took a determined last-lap charge to claw his way back to eighth place and pole position for tomorrow's sprint race.

"I knew the rule about not passing the safety car too early, so I let it get miles in front. But it went too slowly and there was nothing I could do, I was already out of the last corner - I couldn't brake in front of everybody."

Adrian Valles completed the podium, ahead of Briton Ben Hanley who put in a fine drive from 18th on the grid to finish fourth on his GP2 debut. Series-leader Romain Grosjean was a quiet fifth after losing time in his pit stop on lap two.

Pole-sitter Vitaly Petrov threw away a possible victory by spinning out of third place on lap 25 with only Senna and Hiroki Yoshimoto (who was also yet to make his pit stop) ahead of him.

But he recovered to sixth place, which will give him third place on the grid for tomorrow's sprint race behind Milos Pavlovic and Senna.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS:

Pos  Driver          Team                        Time
 1.  Filippi         Qi-Meritus Mahara           1:10:27.834
 2.  Buemi           Trust Team Arden            +     0.182
 3.  Valles          Fisichella Motor Sport      +     9.388
 4.  Hanley          Barwa International Campos  +    11.321
 5.  Grosjean        ART Grand Prix              +    16.483
 6.  Petrov          Barwa International Campos  +    20.966
 7.  Pavlovic        BCN Competicion             +    41.345
 8.  Senna           iSport International        +    43.439
 9.  Fauzy           Super Nova Racing           +    48.867
10.  Jelley          ART Grand Prix              +    48.962
11.  Herck           Fisichella Motor Sport      +    71.721

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Driver          Team                        On lap
     Valerio         Durango                       37
     Yoshimoto       Qi-Meritus Mahara             34
     Valsecchi       Durango                       31
     Tung            Trident Racing                30
     d'Ambrosio      Dams                          27
     Bonanomi        Piquet Sports                 26
     Ebrahim         DPR                           21
     Nunes           DPR                           19
     Chandhok        iSport International          16
     Khan            Trust Team Arden               2
     Tahinci         BCN Competicion                2
     Bakkerud        Super Nova Racing              1
     Schleghelmilch  Trident Racing                 1
     Kobayashi       Dams                           1
     Puglisi         Piquet Sports                  1

FASTEST LAP: Senna, 1:15.686 on lap 43