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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