With cars abandoned left, right and centre, the stewards had no option but to deploy the safety car, and it was here that the race became a tactical battle. While the majority of the field opted to pit at the end of the second lap, the earliest opportunity allowed, Glock and five others - Adrian Zaugg, Sergio Jiminez, Trident twins Pastor Maldonado and Kohei Hirate and final starter Andy Soucek - all remained steadfastly behind the pace car, seemingly throwing away their chances of victory with every passing lap.
Maldonado and Hirate pitted next time around, but Glock continued to lead the remaining quartet until the end of the safety car period on lap five, now with the rest of the field bunched up behind them and running on fresh tyres. iSport clearly had a plan in mind, however, and, given Glock's qualifying advantage over everyone bar his team-mate, the chances of him being able to pull out enough of a gap to resume out front was entirely plausible.
True to form, the German began to pull out a serous gap right from the restart, running almost a second a lap faster than Zaugg in second, with the South African resisting all attempts from those behind. With Glock 19secs to the good after 23 laps - five of which were run at anything other than race pace - the gameplan looked good, while Zaugg's defence - and that further back from Borja Garcia - provided thrills and spills among those behind.
Lapierre was the first to crack, running wide while attempting to brave it out around the outside of Senna - who had passed him in the pits - and then losing out to Lucas di Grassi, while the Trident duo twice came close to reprising their collision in Bahrain. Christian Bakkerud indulged in a spin of his own, while
Kazuki Nakajima - again in mercurial form - appeared on the main straight via the gravel trap and with a left front that seemed to be on the verge of throwing a tread.
![Bruno Senna - Arden International [pic credit: GP2 Series media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/297638.jpg)
