Giorgio Pantano took his sixth career win in GP2 with an emphatic victory from pole position in the feature race at Istanbul.
He made a perfect start and was never troubled by Romain Grosjean, who spent the race keeping Andreas Zuber at arm’s length.
Even a late safety car period failed to shake Pantano’s iron grip on the lead.
Eight points for second place will prove useful for his championship campaign having thrown away victory in the sprint race at Barcelona. Zuber appeared to have the pace to pass him but after several half-hearted attempts appeared to be waiting for the pit stops to move ahead.
But when Alberto Valerio spun his Durango car and stalled it brought out the safety car and the top three made their pit stops together with no change of position. Having to lap Grosjean’s team mate Luca Filipi didn’t help Zuber’s cause either.
Karun Chandok, Vitaly Petrov and Sebastien Buemi were fourth, fifth and sixth. Javier Villa lunged past series returnee Adam Carroll for seventh late in the race, leaving Carroll to start tomorrow’s sprint race from pole position.
Mike Conway was ninth ahead of Adrian Valles in his first appearance for BCN. Barcelona feature race winner Alvaro Parente stalled at the start and later retired.
Bruno Senna could only manage a lowly 14th ahead of Filippi, following a collision on the first lap. His tea might have helped him back to the front of the field had they chose to pit him before the safety car came out with ren laps to go.
