• GP2, Turkish Grand Prix, Race 1

Grosjean holds off Bird charge

Romain Grosjean celebrates his victory on the podium in Istanbul © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Turkish GP2 round

• Championship:
• GP2 Series

• Drivers:
• Romain Grosjean

Romain Grosjean held off Sam Bird's charge to win the opening race of the main GP2 series in Turkey.

The pair were separated by just 0.3s when they crossed the finish line, as Grosjean just managed to resist Bird's attentions after the iSport driver had closed a 7.1 second gap after the pit stops. Jules Bianchi was a distant third for ART, ahead of Giedo van der Garde, Stefano Coletti and Luiz Razia. Charles Pic was seventh, followed by Dani Clos who will start tomorrow's sprint race from pole position.

A dramatic start to the race was a sign of things to come, as a concertinaed field climbed uphill through turn two, Fabio Leimer was launched off the back of Max Chilton's Carlin, and slid upside down across the track before the air intake dug in to the grass and barrel-rolled him upright. Esteban Gutierrez also had a short race after spinning in to Kevin Mirocha in turn one.

At the front, Grosjean had got away well from pole, but Bird was slow to react and Clos jumped him in to second place. Once the safety car pulled in after all the debris from the first lap crashes was cleared though, Bird made short work of Clos, passing him on the run down to turn 12, and then set off after the race leader.

Behind them Clos had been falling back from the moment he was passed by Bird, and was holding up Bianchi and Luca Filippi. Bianchi ran wide trying to force his way through and lost out to Filippi, before the pressure on Clos told and he ran wide at turn 10, allowing the Super Nova driver through in to third place. Filippi pitted looking for clear air but came out behind Johnny Cecotto, and Cecotto soon made a mistake that resulted in him taking Filippi out of the race.

The front two had comfortably pulled away and were able to maintain their pace, pitting last of all the runners, but Bird had a delayed stop and Grosjean was left with a seemingly comfortable lead of over seven seconds. He soon reeled the race GP2 Asia champion in though with a series of quick laps, but couldn't make a telling impression once he got within a second.

Van der Garde made the most of the pit stops to move up behind Clos before finding a way by in to third place. Bianchi had lost out to Coletti soon after the pit stops, but once he cleared him again he made easy work of the struggling Christian Vietoris and showed good pace to close in on fourth place man Clos, passing the Racing Engineering driver in to turn 1 and then van der Garde three laps later.

The battle at the front continued right to the flag though, as Grosjean made an error in turn 12 on the final lap and was forced to defend throughout the slow final section before sealing a hard-fought victory to continue the good form he showed in the Asia series.

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