Since returning to the GP2 Series mid-season, last year's runner-up di Grassi has finished second on three occasions, but finally went one step higher after a tremendous start from third on the grid took him into a first corner braking battle with front row starter Zuber.
Zuber looked to have the lead, but missed the apex and slid wide, allowing di Grassi to nip past him. Di Grassi's Campos team-mate, Vitaly Petrov, then shoved Zuber towards the grass on the run to Turn 2, where he grabbed second position. Petrov gave the place back, however, by running wide at Turn 2 on lap four.
Di Grassi had a healthy two-second lead when Zuber pitted for his mandatory stop on lap 14. Di Grassi had to respond by pitting a lap later, which was a good thing as Zuber had produced a stunning out lap and was right on his tail after he did so.
The pair remained closely matched thereafter, with Zuber only dropping back to a maximum of 1.4 seconds behind when he ran wide at Turn 4 on lap 23. At the flag, they were separated by just 0.7 seconds.
The big news was the championship fight taking an intriguing twist. Series leader Giorgio Pantano was punted into a spin on the opening lap by Romain Grosjean, who understeered wide at Turn 4 and hit Pantano, who appeared to be driving around the outside of him quite cleanly, at the following corner.
With Pantano finishing out of the points, Bruno Senna took a bite out of his championship lead with third place. Senna was lucky that Petrov retired with gearbox failure on lap 23 when running ahead of him, but could look back on a brilliant start that catapulted him from eighth to fourth on the opening lap.
Karun Chandhok finished fourth, ahead of the star of the race: Pastor Maldonado. After missing qualifying due to a big crash in free practice, the Venezuelan stormed from the back of the grid and, by delaying his pitstop, led the race for 20 laps. He rejoined fifth, where he would finish, but ran out of laps to catch Chandhok despite lapping much faster on fresh rubber.
Mike Conway drove a strong race to finish sixth, holding off a charging Sebastien Buemi. Andy Soucek finished eighth for reverse grid pole, after putting up a stern defence to Jerome d'Ambrosio.
Classified: Pos Driver Team Time 1. Di Grassi Campos 1:04:35.028 2. Zuber Piquet Sports + 0.711 3. Senna iSport + 3.611 4. Chandhok iSport + 19.046 5. Maldonado Piquet Sports + 21.883 6. Conway Trident + 33.375 7. Buemi Arden + 33.621 8. Soucek Super Nova + 36.911 9. d'Ambrosio Dams + 37.211 10. Yamamoto ART + 48.359 11. Kobayashi Dams + 49.634 12. Nunes DPR + 56.490 13. Villa Racing Engineering + 57.463 14. Pantano Racing Engineering + 1:01.492 15. Filippi Arden + 1:11.941 16. Parente Super Nova + 1:29.672 17. Grosjean ART + 1 Lap 18. Asmer FMS + 1 Lap 19. Rodriguez FMS + 1 Lap Not classified: Driver Team On lap Petrov Campos 23 Herck DPR 13 Valsecchi Durango 7 Tung Trident 1 Valles BCN Competicion 1 Iaconelli BCN Competicion 0 Valerio Durango 0 Fastest lap: Grosjean, 1:29.793 on lap 17
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