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Pantano wins final race of the year

Giorgio Pantano rounded off a perfect weekend for himself and the FMS team with another great GP2 win

Pantano made a sensational start from eighth on the grid to lead into the first corner. But new champion Lewis Hamilton made almost as good a getaway to slot into second from sixth, and from there on the lead duo just pulled away from the rest.

Hamilton lost ground with a trip across the Lesmo gravel, but rejoined and recaught Pantano. On the penultimate lap he was on the Italian's tail, but braked too late for the second chicane, overshot and was forced to back off and let Pantano resume in the lead.

This handed a decisive advantage to the Italian who duly became the fourth driver to claim back-to-back feature and sprint race wins.

Hamilton's second was a fitting end to his championship year, while a welcome third went to DPR's Clivio Piccione.

From second on the grid, he was swamped at the start, but held on firmly after that, defending robustly from Nelson Piquet Jr and Alex Premat for a well-earned podium.

Nicolas Lapierre took fourth after Piquet spun while attempting to pass Piccione and Premat went off at the same place as Hamilton.

At the flag he was followed across the line by Hiro Yoshimoto, Piquet and Luca Filippi, with less than a second covering the four.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Pantano       FMS International         32:08.597
 2.  Hamilton      ART Grand Prix            +   0.411
 3.  Piccione      DPR                       +  14.075
 4.  Lapierre      Arden International Ltd   +  21.206
 5.  Yoshimoto     BCN Competicion           +  21.680
 6.  Piquet Jr.    Piquet Sports             +  22.029
 7.  Filippi       BCN Competicion           +  22.548
 8.  Viso          iSport International      +  28.507
 9.  Bruni         Trident Racing            +  43.967
10.  Fauzy         Super Nova International  +  44.845
11.  Valles        Campos Racing             +  45.523
12.  Petrov        DPR                       +  45.781
13.  Tahinci       FMS International         +  61.274
14.  Grassi        Durango                   +  68.214
15.  Perera        DAMS                      +  2 Laps

NOT CLASSIFIED:

     Driver        Team                      Laps
     Lopez         Super Nova International   17
     Zuber         Trident Racing             17
     Porteiro      Campos Racing              16
     Premat        ART Grand Prix             15
     Hernandez     Durango                    12
     Carroll       Racing Engineering          5
     Negrao        Piquet Sports               4
     Monfardini    DAMS                        4
     Ammermueller  Arden International Ltd     2
     Villa         Racing Engineering          1

Fastest lap: Hamilton, 1:30.528 on lap 17

Final championship standings:

Drivers                     Teams
 1.   Hamilton      114     ART Grand Prix            180
 2.   Piquet Jr.    102     Piquet Sports             115
 3.   Premat         66     iSport International      101
 4.   Glock          58     Arden International Ltd    57
 5.   Pantano        44     FMS International          46
 6.   Viso           42     Trident Racing             45
 7.   Bruni          33     Racing Engineering         33
 8.   Carroll        33     Super Nova International   30
 9.   Lapierre       32     BCN Competicion            22
10.   Lopez          30     DPR                        18
11.   Ammermueller   25     DAMS                       14
12.   Piccione       18     Campos Racing              12
13.   Negrao         13     Durango                     9
14.   Zuber          12
15.   Yoshimoto      12
16.   Perera          8
17.   Di Grassi       8
18.   Valles          7
19.   Filippi         7
20.   Gommendy        6
21.   Monfardini      6
22.   Porteiro        5
23.   Hernandez       1
24.   Fauzy           0
25.   Jani            0
26.   Villa           0
27.   Pla             0
28.   Conway          0
29.   Petrov          0
30.   Tahinci         0

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