Further back, the absence of Senna, Nakajima and the iSport duo allowed the top eight to take on an unexpected appearance, with Vitaly Petrov, Javier Villa, Sebastien Buemi, Xandi Negrao and Ho-Pin Tung to all feature at times. Giorgio Pantano would have expected to take advantage of the absentees, but was forced out of the race on lap one when his Campos Grand Prix entry again developed transmission problems.
Villa, Tung, Marcos Martinez and Borja Garcia all took turns at leading while the pit-stops cycled through but, once normal order was resumed, it was Lapierre back in control, the Frenchman not willing to wait for Garcia to pit and passing the Durango man at the new-look Bus Stop on lap 13.
With his pursuers taking a little longer to dispense with the Spaniard, Lapierre was able to open out a nice cushion, with Filippi and Carroll also giving each other things to think about as they battled over second. di Grassi, meanwhile, had fallen away from the podium places, but was untroubled by those behind.
The Brazilian was then gifted an extra point when Carroll, in the heat of pursuing second place, found his FMSI car swapping ends on the exit of Pouhon. Replays showed the Briton had got a little greedy on the high inside kerb, and was unable to prevent the car from nosing into the barriers, breaking its front wing and ending another promising race.
With di Grassi moving back in to the top three, the podium positions were as good as settled with problems intervening, leaving the interest to settle on the minor places. Villa's strategy of stopping later than the frontrunners paid off when he found himself elevated to fourth, having started 14th, while Mike Conway, having escaped the sort of first corner misfortune that has dogged his debut season, ran in fifth.
![Nicolas Lapierre - DAMS [pic credit: GP2 media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/346987.jpg)
