The rain finally returned, as drizzle, with four laps to run, and Villa's gap halved at a stroke as the Spaniard began to take extra care with his lines. Filippi, too, found his cushion back to third beginning to shrink as Pantano closed in, but the margins eventually stabilised at a matter of tenths, the youngster's pursuers keeping one eye on the bigger picture.
"I think we have shown that our rhythm is always really good," Filippi commented, "Now Timo has had a zero point weekend, we have had bad luck once each. In
Silverstone, it would be really nice to have a good fight with him."
"I hope I can close the gap to Glock," di Grassi echoed, "I'm here to win the championship, not to be a number."
Senna and Nakajima, however, were showing no such caution as they battled over the final point. The Japanese driver made the most of a move at Adelaide to squeeze inside his Brazilian rival, but Senna was having none of it, responding with a move of his own at the 180. The two cars made contact as the Brazilian dived to the inside, but it was the
Red Bull machine that came off worst, Senna spinning onto the grass before resuming, chastened.
At the front, meanwhile, Villa had held on to his lead, crossing the line to the obvious delight of the entire Racing Engineering crew, which had been happy with the Spaniard's seventh place on Saturday after team-mate Ernesto Viso's violent accident had caused the race to be red-flagged. If ever there was a tonic to be administered, this was it.
"This is good," Villa admitted, "Normally, when you are in the front and they are pushing you all the way, it's a really hard race, but this was comfortable. I was hoping it would be more difficult!"
