Grosjean takes Asian feature race win in Dubai

Friday was a busy day for the GP2 Asian Series teams with practice, qualifying and the 34-lap Feature race all packaged into one day. Tomorrow, the new series will close out its inaugural year with the short Sprint race.

Romain Grosjean notched the crown last weekend in Bahrain in front of the Formula One teams which from the young racer was a great way to showcase his talent. GP2 is the ladder series for F1 and many of the drivers from the Asian series will be competing in the main GP2 Series this season.

Today, Grosjean scored his fourth win out of the nine races covering five events and there is still one challenge left tomorrow with the shorter Sprint race closing out the season. It was not a pretty race for the ART Grand Prix team driver, before the half-way mark, it looked like his best finish would be fourth.

“It’s not luck if someone doesn’t do their job properly. I was fighting all the way, but I did think my engineer was mistaken when he told me I was leading,” Grosjean commented after today’s victory.

Taking the start from pole position, Grosjean had alongside him Bruno Senna who made a great start as the two battled in the opening lap. As they headed into the hairpin, both went slightly offline with Senna making a quick recovery and the rare error from the Frenchman saw Senna take the lead. To add injury to insult, both Yelmer Buurman and Sebastien Buemi forced their way past following the Brazilian iSport’s car and relegating Grosjean to fourth. Russian driver Vitaly Petrov jumped from seventh to fifth.

“I had a good start, but then I missed the braking point at the hairpin. That’s when Senna made a good move and passed me,” admitted Grosjean.

The race action intensified with the two Arden teammates chasing down Senna but losing ground as they fought for second as Grosjean was looking for an opening to slide past the two Arden cars. However the champion went airborne over the kerbing and gave Buurman and Buemi some ground.

Buemi won the fight, moving himself into second and gave chase for the lead. Grosjean found the needed spot to move into third, leaving Buurman to concentrate on holding Campos racer Petrov.

The race settled down and while some came in early for fresh rubber, ART chose to leave Grosjean out until the 13th lap, possibly costing him the needed speed to catch Buemi and Senna. When the Swiss driver for Arden came in on lap 11, Grosjean’s tires were too worn to make up lost ground.

Senna had yet to make his mandatory pit-stop, along with Petrov and Ho-Pin Tung. The Chinese driver for Trident Racing was now holding third. Senna made his stop on lap 14 but the team only put on one rear tire and had to take a second stop. Petrov came in four laps later followed by Tung four laps later — way past the usual half-way mark — and on lap 30, with Senna making the second stop, Grosjean and Buemi had their own battle, at that time, for second.

The Frenchman has luck on his side. Once past Buemi, Grosjean was in the race lead with the Swiss driver just off his rear. Grosjean held on for the victory with the two Arden teammates second and third.

“I had a great fight with the Trust Team Arden boys to get back in front. I fought all the way to the win,” said Grosjean.

Buurman was pleased to take his first podium. “This is only my third round in the GP2 Asia Series, therefore this is an amazing result for me and the team,” commented the Dutchman. “I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I will do anything to get some more points.”

Petrov was fourth followed by Qi-Meritus’ Hiroki Yoshimoto who quietly placed fifth. Piquet Sport driver Marco Bonanomi was sixth with Jerome d’Ambrosio for DAMS team in seventh.

“We opted for an early pit stop on lap 4 and rejoined in 15th. I fought my way back up the order and kept pushing hard and eventually finished fifth,” explained Yoshimoto about his race today. “I’m happy to bring the team four more points and looking forward to being just as competitive in race 2.”

Starting on Saturday’s pole will be Milos Pavlovic, the BCN racer finished eighth.

It was agonizing for the Brazilian who saw his lead and potential win witter away. Senna ended ninth in the race before the GP2 officials excluded him due to the error of not taking on two rear tires as required during the original mandatory pit-stop. Even though the team fixed their error later, it did not make up for the mistake. It cost him the needed points, taking him out of any hope for the sub-championship title.

Senna actually came in the second time for a new front tire. “I was never meant to win in this championship. I wanted my front left changing [rather than his right rear] because I could see it was losing shape.”

Heading into the final race with 33 points for the fight for second place in the final standings is Petrov. Buemi is only one point adrift. It will be close between the Russian and the Swiss racers.

“This podium is another great result for the team. Tonight, I’m only one point behind Petrov,” Buemi said. “He will start in front of me tomorrow, so I’ll have to make another great start and fight until the last lap in order to finish second of the championship.”

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