The Swiss driver had looked destined to play second fiddle to Super Nova's Andy Soucek, who made a strong start from pole and led by about a second for the first 12 laps. But then he locked up and understeered off at a right-hander, which gifted Buemi the victory.
Buemi always looked to have more pace than Soucek, and demonstrated this by pulling away to a 7.9-second win. Soucek clung on to second, and was given some respite when third-placed Pastor Maldonado's Piquet Sports car broke down just as he was getting on terms with him.
That allowed Bruno Senna a late run on Soucek in the closing stages, and he crossed the line just fractions of a second behind. More importantly, Senna outscored series leader Giorgio Pantano by a further two points, to close the gap between them in the title race to seven points with three rounds remaining.
Pantano finished fifth, well behind Sakon Yamamoto (ART) but just ahead of Racing Engineering teammate Javier Villa.
Yesterday's winner Lucas di Grassi should have made it a double podium but punted Mike Conway into a spin at Turn 1 early on, earning himself a drivethrough penalty. He recovered to finish 10th, ironically passing Conway cleanly to do so with a couple of laps to go.
From the back of the grid, following his 10-place penalty yesterday for hitting Pantano, Romain Grosjean finished 12th. He did, however, punt Alvaro Parente into a spin at Turn 2, which could lead to a grid penalty for the next event.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Sebastien Buemi Trust Team Arden 42:39.084 2. Andy Soucek Super Nova Racing + 7.978 3. Bruno Senna iSport International + 8.066 4. Sakon Yamamoto ART Grand Prix + 14.075 5. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering + 15.766 6. Javier Villa Racing Engineering + 16.341 7. Andreas Zuber Piquet Sports + 18.533 8. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS + 19.162 9. Vitaly Petrov Barwa Campos Team + 19.718 10. Lucas Di Grassi Barwa Campos Team + 30.14 11. Mike Conway Trident Racing + 30.647 12. Romain Grosjean ART Grand Prix + 31.225 13. Davide Valsecchi Durango + 35.646 14. Ho-Pin Tung Trident Racing + 51.478 15. Diego Nunes DPR + 53.405 16. Michael Herck DPR +1:00.993 17. Alberto Valerio Durango +1:04.537 18. Pastor Maldonado Piquet Sports + 3 laps 19. Adrian Valles BCN Competicion + 3 laps Retirements:Driver Team Laps Luca Filippi Trust Team Arden 23 Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS 21 Marko Asmer FMS International 12 Roldan Rodriguez FMS International 8 Carlos Iaconelli BCN Competicion 6 Alvaro Parente Super Nova Racing 5 Karun Chandhok iSport International 0
No comments:
Post a Comment