Grosjean dominates Monaco feature
Romain Grosjean's dream start to the GP2 season continued with a comprehensive win in Monaco today
In a repeat of the season-opener at Barcelona two weeks ago, Grosjean led team-mate Vitaly Petrov across the line for a Barwa Addax one-two. But on this occasion the Frenchman's margin of victory was considerably greater, with 6.6 seconds separating him from the Russian when the chequered flag was waved.
Racing Engineering's Lucas di Grassi was third, albeit more than 16s further down the road.
Grosjean and Petrov were in control of the race from the start and ran in close formation during the first stint. But a string of quick laps during the pit sequence allowed Grosjean to put some more space between himself and the Russian, and from that point on the championship leader never looked under threat.
Di Grassi's podium came at the expense of ART's Nico Hulkenberg, who had been holding down third for the first part of the race only to be leap-frogged during the pitstops.
Andi Zuber (Fisichella) was fifth ahead of DAMS driver Jerome D'Ambrosio and Ocean Racing Technology's Karun Chandhok, with Super Nova's Javier Villa picking up the final point and pole for tomorrow's race with eighth.
The race was a typical Monaco procession, enlivened only by a few equally typical Monaco cases of cars hitting barriers. All were cleared without the need for a safety car, although it could have been different when Edoardo Mortara came to a stop on the exit of the hairpin. Fortunately, everyone behind him was paying attention and managed to avoid hitting the stricken Arden car, and the threat of a pile-up was averted.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Romain Grosjean Addax 1h03m06.299s 2. Vitaly Petrov Addax + 6.600s 3. Lucas Di Grassi Racing Engineering + 22.984s 4. Nico Hulkenberg ART + 24.443s 5. Andreas Zuber Fisichella + 31.040s 6. Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS + 59.777s 7. Karun Chandhok Ocean + 1m01.789s 8. Javier Villa Super Nova + 1m10.089s 9. Roldan Rodriguez Piquet + 1m11.546s 10. Pastor Maldonado ART + 1m20.236s 11. Davide Rigon Trident + 1m21.248s 12. Sergio Perez Arden + 1 lap 13. Luiz Razia Fisichella + 1 lap 14. Giacomo Ricci DPR + 1 lap 15. Davide Valsecchi Durango + 2 laps 16. Michael Herck DPR + 2 laps Not classified/Retirements: Giedo van der Garde iSport 38 laps Alvaro Parente Ocean 36 laps Edoardo Mortara Arden 35 laps Luca Filippi Super Nova 34 laps Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 18 laps Daniel Clos Racing Engineering 16 laps Diego Nunes iSport 13 laps Alberto Valerio Piquet 5 laps Nelson Panciatici Durango 4 laps
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