Timo Glock roared to his first win of 2007 here in Barcelona yesterday for iSport International. The German, starting from seventh after his second place finish Saturdayday, made a blinding start and dispatched his rivals with rapid efficiency over the opening laps. Javier Villa made his first visit to the podium with a richly deserved second place on home soil for Racing Engineering, with Lucas di Grassi repeating yesterday’s performance with third place for ART Grand Prix.
Race 2 Report.
With Borja Garcia stalling at the first start, Timo had already made up a place when the lights went out. Javi made a lightening getaway from pole as team-mate Sergio Jimenez bogged down and was swamped by the fast starting Timo, yesterday’s winner Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi.
Behind them only Roldan Rodriguez and Jason Tahinci failed to make it through the first turn, with the Spaniard spinning and taking out the unlucky Turk on the spot. At the front, Javi was setting a determined pace to lead Lucas, Mikhail Aleshin in the sister ART car, Bruno and Timo, with Sergio in the last points position of sixth.
Kazuki Nakajima had made an incredible start to sit eighth from 15th on the grid, while Giorgio Pantano stunned his rivals to sit 11th from 21st at the start. Timo’s pace yesterday had been astounding, and today was no different. He and Bruno shot past Mikhail and Timo then quickly passed Bruno and eased past Lucas to set off after Javi.
The German reeled off fastest lap after fastest lap and on lap eight blasted by the Spaniard on the straight, signaling his appreciation of the 19 year-old’s maturity in not putting up an over-zealous fight for a race he knew he surely could not win given the rate at which Timo had caught him. The German continued to pull out a lead at around a second a lap, but Javi kept his head under increasing pressure from Lucas, who himself had Bruno looming large in his mirrors. Following Mikhail’s retirement after a spin, Sergio dropped off the back of the battling trio and sat in a race on his own for fifth.
The fight for sixth however was a different story. Vitaly Petrov was the man in the final points position in the latter stages of the race, holding off the increasingly frustrated advances of Kazuki. Behind the Japanese driver a titanic battle between Antonio Pizzonia and Giorgio for eighth saw the Italian emerge on top. His Russian team-mate could almost taste the last point, but it wasn’t to be. He slowed and Kazuki gave his car the slightest touch, dropping the pair behind Giorgio who needed no further invitation for the position.
At the front, Timo swept across the line almost nine seconds ahead of Javi, with Lucas and Bruno inches behind him. Sergio crossed the line in fifth with Giorgio a delighted sixth. To top off a great weekend, Timo also took the point for fastest lap to leave him leading the championship on 31 points from Bruno in second on 18 and Luca Filippi on 16. iSport International lead the teams’ championship on 37 points with Arden second on 21 and Super Nova third on 18.
1st Timo Glock: iSport International. 38:08.585 Today I said to the team that I want to win the race for the mechanics and the whole team, because they did a perfect job over the winter and this is the result of it.
2nd Javier Villa: Racing Engineering. +8.579 It’s incredible. We had a really good first few laps but Timo was really quick so to finish second was perfect!
3rd Lucas di Grassi: ART Grand Prix. +9.139
The car was okay, better than yesterday! I think two podiums from the weekend is a pretty good result.
