Maldonado takes last-gasp victory

D'Ambrosio led for 17-and-a-half of the 18 laps, only for Maldonado to blast past him into Les Combes to record a fine win from sixth on the grid.

D'Ambrosio, who took reverse grid pole thanks to the exclusion of Andi Zuber from yesterday's race, had fended off the early challenge of Andy Soucek, who would later crash out at Stavelot.

Maldonado had to work his way past Alvaro Parente - who would also crash heavily at the Bus Stop- Vitaly Petrov, Sebastien Buemi and Soucek before he made his crucial final move on d'Ambrosio.

D'Ambrosio finished second, ahead of Petrov, Buemi and Lucas di Grassi. Kamui Kobayashi crossed the line sixth, but stole the final point from Davide Valsecchi by cutting the Bus Stop on the final lap.

Yesterday's winner Romain Grosjean spun at Stavelot and could only finish 10th.

Title protagonist Bruno Senna blew his chance to eat into the absent Giorgio Pantano's title lead. He spun at the Bus Stop after clipping Buemi just as he was poised to enter the point-paying positions, and retired with a broken front wing.

Senna will go into the Monza finale 11 points behind Pantano.

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Maldonado      Piquet Sports           39:35.698
 2.  D'Ambrosio     Dams                     + 1.256
 3.  Petrov         Barwa Campos Team        + 5.439
 4.  Buemi          Trust Team Arden         + 6.390
 5.  Di Grassi      Barwa Campos Team        + 7.222
 6.  Kobayashi      Dams                     + 7.890
 7.  Valsecchi      Durango                  + 8.213
 8.  Chandhok       iSport International     + 8.767
 9.  Villa          Racing Engineering       + 12.199
10.  Grosjean       ART Grand Prix           + 16.317
11.  Tung           Trident Racing           + 17.065
12.  Herck          DPR                      + 18.351
13.  Iaconelli      BCN Competicion          + 20.023
14.  Valles         BCN Competicion          + 20.350

Retirements:

    Driver              Team                      Laps
    Soucek              Super Nova Racing           15
    Filippi             Trust Team Arden            12
    Asmer               FMS International           10
    Senna               iSport International        9
    Nunes               DPR                         7
    Parente             Super Nova Racing           5
    Valerio             Durango                     5
    Conway              Trident Racing              4
    Rodriguez           FMS International           4
    Yamamoto            ART Grand Prix              2
    Zuber               Piquet Sports               1

Fastest lap: Maldonado, 1:58.860 on lap 5