Romain Grosjean made up for his rookie errors in Barcelona to claim victory in Sunday's sprint race in Istanbul, but the Frenchman's success was overshadowed by a potentially serious incident involving a charging Bruno Senna.
Grosjean had only just thrust his ART Grand Prix machine down the inside of long-time leader Vitaly Petrov when Senna returned to the pits with his right front corner folded back against the cockpit of the iSport entry. The Brazilian, clearly annoyed, complained vociferously of something in the middle of the track on the back straight, but it took some time to realise that he had collected a stray dog that had managed to find its way onto the circuit.
Istanbul has its fair share of strays and, when it turned out that there was a second animal on the circuit, presumably looking for the one despatched by Senna, the safety car was sent out to control the pace until it could be rounded up. That, however, was of little consolation to Senna or the iSport team, which not only suffered considerable damage, but have incurred a far more costly penalty had the victim not been caught by the right front wheel of the Brazilian's car.
The safety car period, meanwhile, put Grosjean into a similar position to that which he faced in the Barcelona sprint race but, this time, there was no mistake from the new Asia Series champion, and he pulled out an immediate lead over Petrov, who had Sebastien Buemi and Saturday winner Giorgio Pantano in close company.
Petrov had taken the early lead as problems hit the front row pairing of Adam Carroll and Javi Villa - the Briton succumbing to suspected clutch failure as he pulled away from pole and the Spaniard making a slow getaway - and a series of incidents decimated the field in the corners that followed.