Gianmaria Bruni wins from Scott Speed
Barcelona - GP2 - Race 1
Gianmaria Bruni showed it to Speed in GP2
Former Minardi F1 racer Gianmaria Bruni won todays GP2 series race
after a dominant drive in an exciting race. The Coloni Motorsport
driver led from the start and held off a late charge from iSport
Internationals Scott Speed in the final laps to take a great win.
Heikki Kovalainen took the final podium position in third,
following another great drive, this time from eleventh.
As the five red lights were extinguished at the start, it was Bruni
who got the jump on pole sitter Scott Speed. They diced side by
side down the main straight, but it was Bruni who made it through
turn one first. From there, he pulled out a two second lead from
Jose Maria Lopez, who had also managed to get past Speed at the
first turn.
By lap 18 however, Speed had caught up to the back of Lopez, and as
the DAMS driver fought with the American, Bruni pulled out a
commanding lead. On lap 24 Lopez pitted, leaving Speed in free air
to try and pull back Brunis advantage. When Bruni stopped three
laps later, Speed put the hammer down.
He led for five laps, before pitting himself at the end of lap 31.
His pit crew got him back on the road quickly and he emerged less
than five seconds behind the Italian. The next time past the pits
the gap was down to 3.3 seconds, then 1.9, and with just four laps
to go, Speed was less than a second behind Bruni. Gimmi, however,
had something in reserve, and put in his two personal quickest laps
of the race to pull the smallest of margins back out again,
crossing the finish line 1.203 ahead of the American.
Kovalainens third podium in a row came after a similarly
determined fight. Having made an early compulsory pitstop, the Finn
was left in clean air to set some fast lap times. When the pitstops
played out, he was in fourth, but a mistake by Lopez saw Heikki
snatch third place. Neel Jani and Nelson Piquet Jr also swept past
the DAMS to take fourth and fifth, with Lopez taking sixth, Carroll
seventh and Negrão eighth. Nico Rosberg set the fastest lap of the
race with a 1:25.875 on the penultimate lap.
Kovalainen therefore maintains his lead in the championship
standings on 20 points, followed by Bruni with 18 and Speed on
16.
