Senna scores maiden win in Spain

As expected, Timo Glock (iSport) was the fastest man on the track all day,  but he lost wingman and fellow front row qualifier Andi Zuber at the start, when his first gear broke, putting him out before the race had even begun.

At the second time of asking, Glock leapt into the lead, but behind him it was chaos.

First, Karun Chandhok spun his Durango car on the straight after clipping the grass on the run to the first corner. There, a three-way collision between, from right to left, Mike Conway (Super Nova), Giorgio Pantano (Campos) and Luca Filippi (Super Nova) put the latter pairing out on the spot.

Conway made it to Turn 2, but as he tried to get back on the track he was hit by Antonio Pizzonia (FMS) and Xandi Negrao (Piquet Sports), whose car was flung into the air in the impact. With cars littering the run-offs, the safety car was deployed.

On lap two, most of the field dived into the pits for the mandatory pitstop, except a couple of cars - most notably Glock. When the race restarted on lap 5, he knew he'd have to get the hammer down to negate the disadvantage he was at, as Senna, the first of the stoppers to leave the pits, was only a couple of seconds behind running fifth on the road.

Glock did his best, but just couldn't make enough time to keep ahead when he finally pitted on lap 27. He rejoined in third, behind Senna and Lucas di Grassi (ART). Di Grassi was no match for Glock on fresh rubber, but Senna's pace on old tyres was also a big part in his victory and he held on for a famous win.

The margin of victory was 5.3 seconds at the finish, with Glock regularly lapping 1.3 seconds faster in the closing stages.

Di Grassi just held off a charging Roldan Rodriguez for third, the latter storming through from the lower reaches of the top 10 in his Piquet/Minardi entry. Borja Garcia was fifth for Durango, ahead of ART rookie Mikhail Aleshin, who came out on top of a hairy battle for sixth that was contested between four cars.

Aleshin eventually found a way past fellow Russian Vitaly Petrov (Campos) to nab the place, while Racing Engineering teammates Sergio Jimenez and Javier Villa also surged past him to finish in the points.

Pos  Driver            Team                   Time    
 1.  Bruno Senna       Arden International    1h02:15.237
 2.  Timo Glock        iSport International   + 5.333
 3.  Lucas di Grassi   ART Grand Prix         + 29.210
 4.  Roldan Rodriguez  Minardi Piquet Sports  + 30.204
 5.  Borja Garcia      Durango                + 48.253
 6.  Mikhail Aleshin   ART Grand Prix         + 52.274
 7.  Sergio Jimenez    Racing Engineering     + 55.994
 8.  Javier Villa      Racing Engineering     + 56.815
 9.  Sakon Yamamoto    BCN Competicion        + 1:02.269
10.  Vitaly Petrov     Campos Grand Prix      + 1:14.113
11.  Ho-Pin Tung       BCN Competicion        + 1:15.050
12.  C.Bakkerud        DPR                    + 1:27.561
13.  Kohei Hirate      Trident Racing         + 1:27.922
14.  Andy Soucek       DPR                    + 1:41.215
15.  Kazuki Nakajima   DAMS                   + 2 Laps

Fastest lap: Nakajima, 1:29.989

Retirements:

Driver                 Team                    On lap
Adrian Zaugg           Arden International      21
Nicolas Lapierre       DAMS                     21
Pastor Maldonado       Trident Racing           18
Antonio Pizzonia       FMS International        11
Jason Tahinci          FMS International        0
Karun Chandhok         Durango                  0
Alexandre Negrao       Minardi Piquet Sports    0
Giorgio Pantano        Campos Grand Prix        0
Mike Conway            Super Nova International 0
Andreas Zuber          iSport International     0
Luca Filippi           Super Nova International 0