Bruno Senna won Saturday’s feature GP2 Series race in Spain for Arden International. The Brazilian made the most of an early safety car period to outwit pole-sitter Timo Glock who finished second for iSport International with Lucas di Grassi third for reigning champions ART Grand Prix.
Race 1 Report:
With the first start aborted when both Jason Tahinci and front row starter Andi Zuber failed to make it away, the second start saw mayhem ensue. Karun Chandhok caught the grass on the straight and speared across the field, somehow missing everything but the wall, and at the first corner Giorgio Pantano formed the meat in a Super Nova sandwich. With the Italian and his countryman Filippi out on the spot, Conway bounced back into the pack which sparked a huge accident with Antonio Pizzonia and Xandi Negrao, the latter of whom was taken to hospital for precautionary checks.
The safety car was deployed, and with it came an astonishing rush into the pits. Every driver bar race leader Timo, Adrian Zaugg, Sergio Jimenez and Andy Soucek came in, but it was Bruno who exited the pitlane first, ahead of Nicolas Lapierre and Lucas. Racing recommenced on lap six, and Bruno was immediately past Andy and up to fourth.
Roldan Rodriguez meanwhile was flying, passing Kazuki Nakajima, Vitaly Petrov and Borja Garcia to reach eighth and the points. On lap nine Lucas passed Nicolas for fifth with the pair soon making it past Andy, with Roldan not far behind. At the front Timo was pulling out at over a second a lap from Adrian, but as the laps counted down his lead of around 18 seconds looked just short of the requirement to get him back out at the front. When Sergio came in only Adrian remained between Timo and Bruno, but the South African spun on the penultimate corner bringing a premature end to what had been a measured drive.
Timo knew he had to move soon, and with ten laps to go the German came in. iSport were faultless in their pitwork, but Timo’s lead was just too little to maintain the lead. He emerged in third, behind Lucas and new race leader Bruno. With new tyres the German was easily the fastest man on track, and scythed huge chunks out of the ART driver and in just four laps was past him and off after Bruno. In the end, there just weren’t enough laps left to catch him. The Brazilian held his nerve and drove beautifully to cross the line five seconds ahead of Timo, with Lucas a further 24 seconds back.
Roldan took fourth just a second behind Lucas after Nicolas retired with apparent engine failure as Borja Garcia picked up fifth spot in another classy race for the Spaniard. Debutant Mikhail Aleshin was magnificent in sixth, while the ballsy drive of the day award went to Sergio Jimenez in seventh as Javier Villa took eighth. Kazuki took the point for fastest lap.
1st Bruno Senna: Arden International. 1:02:15.237 It was a great gamble! I was worried stopping early was the right thing to do, but the team made the right call and did a great job. The car was strong all race but I honestly didn’t expect this start to 2007.
2nd Timo Glock: iSport International. +5.333 We had the speed to win but Bruno made the right choice for the race, and us for the championship.
3rd Lucas di Grassi: ART Grand Prix. +29.210 I’m pretty satisfied with a podium. We lost some places in the pits but the team made the right call.
