Lola Heritage

26/06/10

AUTO GP: GROSJEAN WINS RACE 1 AT SPA

Romain Grosjean took a well deserved win in his Auto GP maiden race. The French driver did exactly what everybody expected from him and, after dominating the practices on Saturday, he grabbed victory leading the race flag to flag. It wasn't an easy race anyway because Grosjean had to look in the race for the whole first part of the race to take care of a charging Luca Filippi. The Italian driver of Euronova lapped steadily on the same times as his DAMS competitor, keeping a 1" gap until the pit-stop. Then, DAMS was a bit faster then Euronova in the tyre change and this allowed Grosjean to stretch his lead a bit, while Filippi decided to settle for the 8 points granted by 2nd place. Third was Giorgio Pantano, just 2" adrift from Filippi. The SuperNova former F.1 driver made up one place at the start and the passed Jan Charouz at the end of the Kemmel straight. From then on he sticked himself to Filippi's tail and lost contact only after the pit-stop, being forced to delay the restart in order to let Leal's through in the pit-lane.

Jonny Reid took fourth position, after a fierce fight with Jan Charouz. The kiwi driver had a bad start, and Charouz passed him taking a good advantage in the first part of the race, when he was really quick. After the mandatory pit-stop Reid started to recover, and on lap 6 he made the first try on the inside of the "La Source" hairpin. Jonny and Jan were side by side for the whole downill to Eau Rouge and the Czech driver of Charouz-Gravity Racing used all his skill to stay in front. On lap 10, anyway, Reid was able to pass clinching 4th place. Good race also for Edoardo Piscopo, keeping his series lead thanks to a P6 finish ahead of Julian Leal. The Colombian of Trident drove a great race, passing from 12th place to 7th thanks to a really good pace and to a late stop strategy. The last point was for Carlos Iaconelli. Despite being forced, together with Fabio Onidi, to start from the back of the grid (they both completed one lap more than allowed before the grid formation) the Brazilian driver managed to climb the classification and will start Race 2 from the Pole-Position. Onidi was ninth, just shy of the points ahead of Celso Miguez, Fabrizio Crestani, Natacha Gachnang and Stefano Bizzarri.

Romain Grosjean:

"In the first laps I tried to control the race, because you never know what can happen. I started to push after the pit stop, even if it wasn't easy because I lost the steering dashboard, so I had no infos. Anyway the car was good, and as the track changed a bit from yesterday we already know what changes must be made for Race 2".

Luca Filippi:

"It was a good race, I managed to stay close to Romain but never enough to try a move. Losing time in the pits was a pity, but overall I'm satisfied".

Giorgio Pantano:

"The car was really better than yesterday, and in the first part of the race I was with Romain and Luca. Anyway, they had a better balance for the downhill part of the track, I was always losing ground there. Anyway, I'm pretty satisfied because after yesterday my hopes were not so high".

Race 1

1 Romain Grosjean DAMS 13 laps in 27'43"609
2 Luca Filippi EURONOVA +4.219
3 Giorgio Pantano SUPERNOVA RACING +6.323
4 Jonny Reid SUPERNOVA RACING +22.355
5 Jan Charouz CHAROUZ-GRAVITY RACING +27.260
6 Edoardo Piscopo DAMS +27.724
7 Julian Leal TRIDENT RACING +28.282
8 Carlos Iaconelli DURANGO +32.159
9 Fabio Onidi LAZARUS +35.086
10 Celso Miguez RP MOTORSPORT +52.321
11 Fabrizio Crestani TRIDENT RACING +52.517
12 Natacha Gachnang CHAROUZ-GRAVITY RACING +1:06.413
13 Stefano Bizzarri RP MOTORSPORT +2:28.434
DNF: Duncan Tappy DAMS - Adrien Tambay CHAROUZ-GRAVITY RACING.

Fastest lap: Romain Grosjean, 2'04"921,avg 201,8 kph

Drivers stadings after 5 races:

1. Piscopo 23 points; 2. Filippi 21; 3. Tambay 16; 4. Tappy 13; 5. Grosejan & Onidi 12; 7. Iaconelli & Charouz 11; 9. Reid 10; 10. Arabadzhiev 8; 11. Pantano 7; 12. Zaugg & Miguez 6; 14. Leal 5; 15. Grubmuller, Coletti & Leo 2.