Grosjean wins chaotic Spa race

The Frenchman passed Alvaro Parente with five laps remaining to claim victory. After that, and a third safety car period, Grosjean streaked away to a 4.1sec win. Grosjean's victory moves him back into third place in the points table.

"The conditions were very tricky at the start, but the car was very good in the dry," said Grosjean. "It was a good fight with Parente, and then we had another safety car, so I had to do it all again."

The race was led in its early stages by pole-sitter Bruno Senna, but he was given a drive-through penalty after he was released from his mandatory pitstop in an 'unsafe manner' according to the stewards. His iSport car narrowly missed Alberto Valerio's Durango machine, which was coming in for his stop.

Senna would finish 12th, after his penalty dropped him to last place, but he was fortunate that his championship opponent, series leader Giorgio Pantano, also suffered a disastrous race.

Pantano had looked set to inherit Senna's win, but his engine reverted to safe mode during a safety car period when its water temperature got too cold. He dropped to 10th, but had recovered to eighth, and the coveted reverse grid pole position, when he spun at La Source with just four laps to go.

He continued in 10th place, but would crash out at La Source on the final lap when he tried to pass Roldan Rodriguez but hit Lucas di Grassi instead. He has been summoned to the stewards room and could face a further grid penalty for tomorrow's race.

Piquet Sports duo Andi Zuber and Pastor Maldonado finished third and fourth, but swapped the position on numerous occasions in the closing stages. Vitaly Petrov finished fifth, ahead of Sebastien Buemi, Andy Soucek and Mike Conway.

Davide Valsecchi suffered no major injuries in his shunt that caused the second safety car on lap 10 when he went straight on at Stavelot and crashed into the tyre wall at high speed. He has been flown to hospital, but has no broken bones.

The race started under the safety car, after a rain shower soaked the track just before the start, meaning everyone started on wets. They all switched to slicks during the mandatory stops.

Pos  Driver        Tea                Time
 1.  Grosjean      ART               1h02:33.710
 2.  Parente       Super Nova         +    4.139
 3.  Zuber         Piquet Sports      +    5.744
 4.  Maldonado     Piquet Sports      +    6.308
 5.  Petrov        Campos             +    6.783
 6.  Buemi         Arden              +    8.711
 7.  Soucek        Super Nova         +    8.939
 8.  Conway        Trident            +    9.549
 9.  D'Ambrosio    DAMS               +   10.846
10.  Kobayashi     DAMS               +   12.790
11.  Chandhok      iSport             +   13.048
12.  Senna         iSport             +   13.383
13.  Nunes         DPR                +   14.176
14.  Valles        BCN Comp.          +   14.903
15.  Herck         DPR                +   16.537
16.  Tung          Trident            +   17.315
17.  Asmer         FMS                +   17.935
18.  Villa         Racing Eng.        +   18.204
19.  Yamamoto      ART                +   19.705
20.  Filippi       Arden              +   43.184
21.  Pantano       Racing Eng.        + 1:16.651

Retirements:

    Driver        Team                Laps
    Di Grassi     Campos               25
    Rodriguez     FMS                  25
    Valerio       Durango              21
    Valsecchi     Durango              9
    Iaconelli     BCN Comp.            3

Fastest lap: Grosjean, 1:59.529 on lap 26