The 2008 GP2 Season Review

Perhaps unfairly, Giorgio Pantano has become the yardstick by which all the other GP2 drivers are measured.

The 29-year-old Italian has taken part in all four seasons of GP2 since his year in Formula One with Jordan in 2004 - he didn't do enough to convince F1 to keep him for longer than that one season, but he did prove himself useful alongside Nick Heidfeld - and he was winning races in F3000 for three years before his F1 break, so he knows the series inside out and is a very capable benchmark.

Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen, Timo Glock, Nelson Piquet Jr, and Scott Speed all finished ahead of him in GP2 and went on to get their chances in F1, while those to have finished behind him (including Neel Jani and Luca Filippi) don't seem to have made the cut. So, almost by default, this year's GP2 Series was the race to finish top side of the Giorgio Pantano barrier.

You simply can't argue with the fact that Pantano deserved to win this year's championship. The bare stats are all in his favour. He won the most races, four to Lucas di Grassi's three and two for Bruno Senna, Romain Grosjean, and Sebastien Buemi. All of his wins were feature race wins (the weekend's pure race with the grid decided by qualifying), while the others had at least one sprint (reverse grid) victory. He also had more podiums, pole positions, and fastest laps than anyone else, and led the most laps - twice as many as everyone but Senna.

But no matter what he did, this year's GP2 championship wasn't going to be about Giorgio Pantano. GP2 is a proving ground, an arena where the next generation of talents can burst onto the scene and show the watching Formula One teams that they could be the next big thing.

Giorgio Pantano, Racing Engineering; won in Istanbul © LAT

Pantano's trouble is that there was nothing for him to prove. Everyone already knew him too well and had a pretty good idea of what he was capable of, including the F1 teams - he'd already raced for one and tested for three others (Williams, McLaren, and Benetton). He was in a Catch 22 situation - if he lost he wasn't good enough, if he won his opposition wasn't good enough.

F1 doesn't seem to want Pantano back no matter what he does. Harsh? Perhaps, but F1 is that kind of place. IndyCar seems to be the obvious step for him and he's already made a couple of outings for Chip Ganassi in his post-F1 season in 2005.

So, with nobody above the Pantano divide, who's going to graduate to F1 this time? For the rest, it remains to be seen whether their failure to beat him will hinder their progress. But each of his closest challengers can make a case for why they're still worthy.

Senna came closest to beating him. He lost ground mid-season and spent the second half of the year trying to close the gap. But, despite showing the necessary speed, he just couldn't close that gap. One week he'd be denied by some cruel misfortune, the next he'd shoot himself in the foot.

But Pantano couldn't put it away either. When the pressure was on in the closing rounds both Pantano and Senna imploded. Yes, there was bad luck on both sides, but shunt followed spin, followed shunt followed spin, and the champion scored just 13 points in the last nine races, while Senna took only six from the last six.

Even though each individual event was action-packed with the momentum seemingly swinging one way then the other, Pantano's margin of 10-15 points was kept in tact from Silverstone right the way to the end as Senna's charge was stunted time and again.

Second at the season opener could have been first had he not spun in qualifying. There would have been more points in the feature at Istanbul had he not clipped someone in the pack and damaged his front wing.

He threw away the lead at Silverstone, spun in the wet at Hockenheim and Monza, and could have had second in the sprint at Valencia and fourth at Spa, but crashed in both.

But at the same time, he can point to Istanbul, where he wouldn't have been in the pack in the first place if he hadn't been blocked in qualifying, and the infamous dog incident in the sprint race was hardly of his doing.

A clutch failure cost him a win at Magny-Cours, a broken throttle robbed him of any practice time at the new Valencia street circuit, and he ran out of fuel in the feature race there, before a controversial drive-through penalty denied him a victory at Spa.

Bruno Senna, iSport; took a wet victory at Silverstone © LAT

It's easy to overlook his minimal racing experience in comparison to his rivals, but you have to. He'll be close to his 26th birthday by the time the F1 season kicks off next year and he's got to have caught up.

But, title or not, Senna did what he needed to this year. He was quick enough often enough to show that he has the ability and the potential. Now it's down to an F1 team to take a chance on him and see if he can transmit that into the top echelon.

But Senna wasn't alone in taking the fight to Pantano, behind the Italian the next four drivers were covered by just five points at season's end.

One man scoring regularly at that time was Lucas di Grassi, but he was coming from a long way back after missing the first six races of the year. In the end, he was one point behind Senna and 13 behind Pantano, and he could have been closer still had he not been punted out of two sprint races and wiped himself out of a third.

But it's a wonder that he was able to get as close as he did - and it wouldn't have looked great for the championship if the winner had missed nearly a third of it. If di Grassi's cameo did anything, it highlighted the absence of a campaign as impressive as any of the last three GP2 series winners'.

Formula 3 Euro Series graduates Romain Grosjean and Sebastien Buemi had excellent seasons and Grosjean finished as top rookie. The F3 Euroseries and GP2 Asia champion could have been in the title fight, but involved himself in a few too many unnecessary incidents.

A drive through in the first sprint race of the year for 'over defending', a penalty for lapping under yellow flags that denied him a brilliant win in changeable conditions at Hockenheim, and driving into Pantano in Hungary took the shine off a season that also included an excellent drive to victory from seventh in Turkey, and another impressive win in the feature race at Spa.

Buemi had a quieter year, but it wasn't without its highlights, including a win on slicks on a damp Magny-Cours track from 21st on the grid, and streaking away to victory at the Hungaroring. The Swiss driver was almost ever-present in the points, finishing outside the top eight just once (along with four retirements and one non-start). Punting Pantano out at Monte Carlo was the only real blemish.

There were brief cameos from the likes of Pastor Maldonado, Vitaly Petrov, Alvaro Parente, and Karun Chandhok, but none were able to involve themselves with the front runners on a consistent enough basis to play a significant part.

The subject of a great deal of pre-season angst, the new-for-2008 car was rarely a talking point throughout the year. Once the initial reliability problems had been attended to - mostly before the first race - it settled down into what you'd expect from a one-make series.

Lucas di Grassi wins for Campos in Valencia © LAT

It was a step forward in performance, anywhere with high-speed corners at least. The extra downforce produced made the car slightly slower in a straight line and the pole time was slower than 2007 at Monaco, where it didn't get a chance to show its ability to change direction quickly. But more than a second was knocked off the Silverstone times, where there's no shortage of fast, flowing turns.

More importantly, the car stood up extremely well against whatever walls the drivers threw it at during the year. Davide Valsecchi tested the limits of its safety more than most, and it was astounding that he escaped an almighty shunt at Istanbul with 'just' a compressed vertebrae and a mild concussion - it could have been a lot worse.

How it was won

The opening rounds didn't tell us much about the championship with Parente and Kamui Kobayashi taking the wins, the latter after Grosjean was penalised for over-aggressive driving. But Pantano got going at Istanbul while Senna had a nightmare, and the tables were turned next time out in Monaco where Senna took a brilliant win while Pantano retired twice in accidents.

It was all square after three rounds, but then Pantano started to open that crucial lead at Magny-Cours, which also marked Lucas di Grassi's comeback. It could have been so different, though. With Pantano only taking the lead when Senna's clutch failed.

They won a race each at Silverstone, but Pantano's lead increased again with more points for his feature win than for Senna's sprint. And again it was a race Senna could have won. The Brazilian was leading until he ran wide at Stowe and ended up sixth.

The half way point and Pantano leads by 11. Senna needs to get that lead down, somehow.

But it went up yet more at Hockenheim, despite Pantano colliding with Andy Soucek in the sprint race. Another all-important feature race win (thanks to another Grosjean penalty) gave him more than a fourth and a third gave Senna.

Di Grassi got his first win of the year at Hungary and was starting to catch up, while Pantano was knocked out of the lead by Grosjean and failed to maximise the opportunity with a pair of thirds.

Pantano and Senna both ran out of fuel at Valencia, handing Petrov the win. Senna then crashed in the sprint race while di Grassi won and started to creep into the picture.

Giorgio Pantano and Bruno Senna in Monza © LAT

Things were starting to look desperate for Senna and he needed to close that gap badly at Spa. He had half a chance when Pantano's engine flicked into safe mode following a safety car period and the Italian spun out at La Source a couple of laps later and took di Grassi with him. Senna, meanwhile, had dominated the race but was denied another win by a drive-through penalty for an unsafe release from his pit stop.

Pantano wasn't allowed to start the sprint race as punishment for wiping out di Grassi in the feature, but another opportunity to make up the ground came and went when Senna spun at the Bus Stop and damaged his car.

So to the Monza finale with 11 points behind them - just as there were after Silverstone, eight races ago. Pantano once again did his best to give Senna a chance. He had it in the bag starting from pole while Senna qualified 12th, but he crossed the dreaded white line leaving his pit stop and was slapped with a drive through.

Senna could only manage fourth, though, so it didn't matter. It was all over with a race to spare. Di Grassi won the feature and went into the sprint with a good chance of pinching second in the standings.

It looked good for him when Senna spun and he got ahead, but then di Grassi hit Conway and Senna had to go off again in avoidance, game over for both.