With Maldonado untouchable out front, pulling away from his pursuers by almost two seconds a lap, the battle was on for the minor points places. Filippi was all over the back of Petrov and looking for a way through, while Glock and Senna were clearly being held up by Buemi for lap after lap. Glock soon gave himself some added ventilation as he punched a small hole in his nosecone on the rear of the Swiss driver’s car, but Buemi didn’t take the hint and continued defending robustly from the challenge behind him.
The pit-stops started early, with a number of drivers taking a punt on getting into clear air. Following Soucek's enforced lead, Nicolas Lapierre and Mike Conway were both looking for breathing room, but it all went wrong for the Briton as he rejoined, a heavy right foot spinning the Super Nova car into an embarrassing exit on cold tyres at the pit exit.
With Maldonado already coming up to lap the backmarkers, Glock had clearly had enough of seeing Buemi's ART exhaust and was in for his stop on lap eleven, coming back out in 13th and forced to wait and see if his strategy would pay off.
Further up the field, Pantano was unhappy with his tyres, and there was soon a train of drivers on his tail, headed by di Grassi. Filippi and Buemi jumped out of the queue and into the pits on lap 14 of 45, with Pantano in on the next lap and Campos team-mate Petrov the next time around. Barring Pantano, all re-emerged behind the Glock, who was now up to seventh on track, while Pantano emerged just ahead of his fellow veteran.
Now out in clear air, di Grassi was running fast, slowly cutting into the leader’s gap as he tried to set himself up for his pit-stop. Maldonado answered the Brazilian’s challenge until his scare at Rascasse, and pitted on lap 19, re-emerging just behind Senna, in second place. When the Brazilian came in next time around, normal order was restored and it looked as though nothing was going to be able to slow Maldonado.
