An overjoyed Bruno Senna took the top step of the podium after the feature race of Barcelona's GP2 Series weekend hardly able to believe that he had broken his duck on only his second race weekend in the F1 feeder series.

The 23-year old Brazilian made a stellar start from the inside of row four, moving up to third and then taking advantage of an early safety car period to take his compulsory pit-stop. Pushed back to the lower points places as four other runners opted to stop later in the race, Senna was eventually promoted into the lead when polesitter Timo Glock made his mandatory tyre change with eleven laps remaining.

"I was very concerned as I knew tyres would be an issue here," the Arden International driver said of his early stop, "We took a big gamble coming in for the pit-stop when we did. I'd made a very good start and was P3 at the first corner, but my engineer called me into the pits [at the end of lap two] and I admit that I was a bit worried if it was the right thing to do, because I had to finish the whole race on one set of tyres.

"My front left tyre got very badly deformed halfway through and I was struggling with some vibrations on the corners - by at the end, it was really bad. I just hoped that it wouldn't blow up and it didn't."

The charging Glock pushed hard in the closing laps of the race, but Senna held on to pass the chequered flag with 5.3secs still in hand over his rival.

"It's still a bit hard to believe!" the Brazilian admitted, "In the end, [pitting early] was the right call, so I have to thank the team. They did a really good pit-stop which allowed me to overtake [Lucas] di Grassi in the pits.

"After the restart, I overtook [Andy] Soucek straight away, which was very important for me. Then I just nursed the tyres and kept up with [Sergio] Jiminez and [Arden team-mate Adrian] Zaugg, as I needed to be close to them as they still needed to pit. The whole thing worked out and, when Glock pitted, he wasn't far enough ahead so I got into first place, then put in a decent pace all the way to the end.

"The car was strong and we didn't struggle with the tyres. I knew that Glock wasn't close enough with four laps to go to get me. He was 1.5secs a lap faster than me and, in four laps, he couldn't take ten seconds, so I just did the maths in my head and kept pushing."

After a strong debut in Bahrain four weeks ago, Senna sits in the third in the championship, nine points behind overall leader Glock, but he admits that it wasn't something he had expected so early in his GP2 career.

"I seem to have adjusted well to GP2," he smiled, "It was a good surprise to be strong in Bahrain, and I don't think Paul Ricard showed our real pace. Obviously, with it being my first year, I didn't really know how the racing would be. Now, I just need to work hard with the team to be at the front every time."