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Grosjean leads first practice at home

Local hero Romain Grosjean set an impressive pace in GP2 Series free practice at Magny-Cours on Friday afternoon, outpacing the field by over one and half tenths of a second

Grosjean (ART) was relatively slow early on, some way off early pacesetter Andi Zuber (Piquet Sports), but turned it on after a pitstop and lapped the French GP venue in 1:22.676. Zuber stayed second best on a 1:22.834, which was 0.158s slower.

Javier Villa headed a Racing Engineering 3-4, but ended his session in the wall at Estoril, the fast right-hander catching out a number of drivers.

Mike Conway and Pastor Maldonado were fortunate to escape high-speed gravely offs there, while Grosjean had a big moment of his own, but Villa impacted the tyrewall without injury.

Giorgio Pantano was fourth fastest, the only other member of the 1:22 club, with the rest headed by Maldonado on 1:23.092. The Venezuelan, who took pole last time out, had three offs during the session - and produced the save of the season to avoid the Estoril tyrewall by booting it sideways on full opposite lock.

Vitaly Petrov was sixth fastest for Campos, ahead of Roldan Rodriguez (FMS), GP2 returnee Lucas di Grassi (Campos), Super Nova returnee Andy Soucek (who spun off into the gravel at the Imola chicane) and Bruno Senna (iSport), who spun across the finish line on one of his flying laps.

On his first outing for Durango, Ben Hanley was 21st, while newcomers Marko Asmer (24th), Michael Herck (25th) and Carlos Iaconelli (26th) rounded out the runners.

Pos Driver               Team                  Time         Gap
 1. Romain Grosjean      ART                   1:22.676
 2. Andi Zuber           Piquet Sports         1:22.834  +0.158
 3. Javier Villa         Racing Engineering    1:22.874  +0.198
 4. Giorgio Pantano      Racing Engineering    1:22.892  +0.216
 5. Pastor Maldonado     Piquet Sports         1:23.092  +0.416
 6. Vitaly Petrov        Campos                1:23.171  +0.495
 7. Roldan Rodriguez     FMS                   1:23.173  +0.497
 8. Lucas di Grassi      Campos                1:23.213  +0.537
 9. Andy Soucek          Super Nova            1:23.238  +0.562
10. Bruno Senna          iSport                1:23.274  +0.598
11. Alvaro Parente       Super Nova            1:23.293  +0.617
12. Jerome d'Ambrosio    DAMS                  1:23.337  +0.661
13. Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                  1:23.346  +0.670
14. Luca Filippi         ART                   1:23.353  +0.677
15. Sebastien Buemi      Arden                 1:23.353  +0.677
16. Karun Chandhok       iSport                1:23.392  +0.716
17. Mike Conway          Trident               1:23.474  +0.798
18. Diego Nunes          DPR                   1:23.915  +1.239
19. Yelmer Buurman       Arden                 1:23.997  +1.321
20. Ho-Pin Tung          Trident               1:24.073  +1.397
21. Ben Hanley           Durango               1:24.340  +1.664
22. Adrian Valles        BCN                   1:24.392  +1.716
23. Alberto Valerio      Durango               1:24.506  +1.830
24. Marko Asmer          FMS                   1:24.918  +2.242
25. Michael Herck        DPR                   1:25.757  +3.081
26. Carlos Iaconelli     BCN                   1:27.898  +5.222

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