Behind him, the action was more frenetic and, without the two iSport cars - which had taken themselves out of front row positions within yards of the start - there was all to play for among those hopeful of reeling in points leader
Timo Glock's advantage.
Bruno Senna, Lucas di Grassi and Luca Filippi all played major roles in the leading points positions, the Italian even nerfing Super Nova team-mate Mike Conway around at Adelaide in his eagerness to make up positions. Senna, having briefly assumed the lead at the original start, dropped down the order after a mistake in the opening laps after the restart, and then allowed Pastor Maldonado to catch him napping as Chandhok went off, but remained a fixture in the top eight.
di Grassi was the most untroubled of the trio, running a comfortable second to Pantano throughout, while Senna had to mount a late charge to catch and pass Filippi on the final lap to complete the podium.
"We improved the car a lot from the last race in Barcelona - it was really good, really consistent, and we had a really good pace compared to everyone else," di Grassi reported, "For sure, it was something that missing from earlier races."
Both Senna and Filippi had already taken advantage of Maldonado's tyres going off, the Venezuelan making a costly error that dropped him outside of the top eight, but Filippi failed to heed the warnings and used up the best of his rubber as Senna homed in.
"From fifth to third was not bad, but the race was quite hard!" Senna admitted, "On Filippi, it was a really good move, really good fun - I could go toe-to-toe with him - and make him miss the braking point."
The remaining scoring places were equally hard-fought, with Pantano's team-mate Vitaly Petrov eventually coming through to claim fifth in a three-way tussle with the tyre-troubled Adrian Zaugg and Javier Villa at the close. Nicolas Lapierre claimed the final points place - and pole for Sunday's spring event - but only after being caught out by the slowing Maldonado and spinning away a higher position just a handful of laps from home.
