Grosjean leads first practice at home

Local hero Romain Grosjean set an impressive pace in GP2 Series free practice at Magny-Cours on Friday afternoon, outpacing the field by over one and half tenths of a second.

Grosjean (ART) was relatively slow early on, some way off early pacesetter Andi Zuber (Piquet Sports), but turned it on after a pitstop and lapped the French GP venue in 1:22.676. Zuber stayed second best on a 1:22.834, which was 0.158s slower.

Javier Villa headed a Racing Engineering 3-4, but ended his session in the wall at Estoril, the fast right-hander catching out a number of drivers.

Mike Conway and Pastor Maldonado were fortunate to escape high-speed gravely offs there, while Grosjean had a big moment of his own, but Villa impacted the tyrewall without injury.

Giorgio Pantano was fourth fastest, the only other member of the 1:22 club, with the rest headed by Maldonado on 1:23.092. The Venezuelan, who took pole last time out, had three offs during the session - and produced the save of the season to avoid the Estoril tyrewall by booting it sideways on full opposite lock.

Vitaly Petrov was sixth fastest for Campos, ahead of Roldan Rodriguez (FMS), GP2 returnee Lucas di Grassi (Campos), Super Nova returnee Andy Soucek (who spun off into the gravel at the Imola chicane) and Bruno Senna (iSport), who spun across the finish line on one of his flying laps.

On his first outing for Durango, Ben Hanley was 21st, while newcomers Marko Asmer (24th), Michael Herck (25th) and Carlos Iaconelli (26th) rounded out the runners.

Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Romain Grosjean ART 1:22.676 2. Andi Zuber Piquet Sports 1:22.834 +0.158 3. Javier Villa Racing Engineering 1:22.874 +0.198 4. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering 1:22.892 +0.216 5. Pastor Maldonado Piquet Sports 1:23.092 +0.416 6. Vitaly Petrov Campos 1:23.171 +0.495 7. Roldan Rodriguez FMS 1:23.173 +0.497 8. Lucas di Grassi Campos 1:23.213 +0.537 9. Andy Soucek Super Nova 1:23.238 +0.562 10. Bruno Senna iSport 1:23.274 +0.598 11. Alvaro Parente Super Nova 1:23.293 +0.617 12. Jerome d'Ambrosio DAMS 1:23.337 +0.661 13. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 1:23.346 +0.670 14. Luca Filippi ART 1:23.353 +0.677 15. Sebastien Buemi Arden 1:23.353 +0.677 16. Karun Chandhok iSport 1:23.392 +0.716 17. Mike Conway Trident 1:23.474 +0.798 18. Diego Nunes DPR 1:23.915 +1.239 19. Yelmer Buurman Arden 1:23.997 +1.321 20. Ho-Pin Tung Trident 1:24.073 +1.397 21. Ben Hanley Durango 1:24.340 +1.664 22. Adrian Valles BCN 1:24.392 +1.716 23. Alberto Valerio Durango 1:24.506 +1.830 24. Marko Asmer FMS 1:24.918 +2.242 25. Michael Herck DPR 1:25.757 +3.081 26. Carlos Iaconelli BCN 1:27.898 +5.222

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