Kobayashi inherits sprint race win
GP2 Asia champion Romain Grosjean threw away his first main series victory in Barcelona's sprint race on Sunday, when he was given a drive-through penalty for over-aggressive defending from Kamui Kobayashi, who inherited the win
Grosjean started fourth but climbed up to second by the first corner as Kobayashi squeezed Sebastien Buemi onto the grass on the run to Turn 1, dropping Buemi to third, and third-placed starter Vitaly Petrov was slow off the line.
Grosjean took two laps to line up Kobayashi and passed him with ease going into Turn 1 at the start of lap three. He pulled away by over 7secs when his lead was negated by a safety car as Giacomo Ricci spun and stalled at the chicane.
Just before the restart, Grosjean locked up and understeered off at the chicane, leaving him prone to attack from Kobayashi on the start/finish straight. Grosjean chose the inside line to defend, and Kobayashi pulled to the outside. Grosjean then chose to move left as well, squeezing the Japanese onto the kerb.
The stewards took a dim view of this second defensive movement, and took little time in slapping him with a drive-through penalty. He peeled off into the pits on the penultimate lap, allowing Kobayashi to stroke home to his third sprint race win (counting GP2 Asia).
Sebastien Buemi drove well to hold Giorgio Pantano at bay throughout the race to take second. Bruno Senna finished fourth to take the joint lead of the championship with yesterday's winner Alvaro Parente, who lost time on the opening lap when Luca Filippi hit Karun Chandhok into a spin in front of him at Turn 3.
Davide Valsecchi finished fifth, with Javier Villa just holding off Parente by a matter of hundredths for the final point.
Pos Driver Team Gap
1. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 40:27.229
2. Sebastien Buemi Arden +1.176
3. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering +1.962
4. Bruno Senna iSport +2.808
5. Davide Valsecchi Durango +3.501
6. Javier Villa Racing Engineering +8.480
7. Alvaro Parente Super Nova +8.573
8. Mike Conway Trident +9.593
9. Ben Hanley Campos +11.469
10. Yelmer Buurman Arden +16.974
11. Adrian Valles FMS +22.871
12. Milos Pavlovic BCN +23.360
13. Romain Grosjean ART +23.558
14. Ho-Pin Tung Trident +25.486
15. Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS +47.929
16. Diego Nunes DPR +1 lap
Not classified
Driver Team Laps
Pastor Maldonado Piquet Sports 22 laps
Andi Zuber Piquet Sports 22 laps
Karun Chandhok iSport 18 laps
Giacomo Ricci DPR 18 laps
Vitaly Petrov Campos 15 laps
Alberto Valerio Durango 14 laps
Roldan Rodriguez FMS 13 laps
Paolo Nocera BCN 12 laps
Luca Filippi ART 3 laps
Fastest lap, Grosjean 1:29.204 on lap 5
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