Behind the top two, there remains a field of drivers all looking to stamp some sort of mark on the series, ensuring that the action will continue right down to the final runners. Speed, for one, remains increasingly frustrated that he can be as high as third in the points table and yet not win a race. The American will be out to confirm that he is the fastest man in GP2 this weekend.
Premat and Carroll are both multiple race winners in 2005, as is sixth-placed Neel Jani, but the Swiss driver will be looking to bounce back from a miserable Turkish weekend that saw him punted out of both races and succumb to Carroll's race two haul.
Pantano, meanwhile, has lifted himself up to seventh overall thanks to a string of podium finishes that continued in race one in Turkey, and has established himself as the leading Italian in the series at the expense of another ex-
F1 man, Gianmaria Bruni. The former Minardi man will not be able to fightback at Monza, however, as he has decided to part company with Coloni, where he will be replaced by Italian F3000 frontrunner Toni Vilander.
Nelson Piquet Jr has vowed to put the recent management upheaval at Hitech Piquet Sports behind him to seek victory at a circuit that proved bountiful to his father, while Jose Maria Lopez, Olivier Pla and Clivio Piccione, occupying tenth to twelfth in the points, will all hope to relocate their race-winning form.
Along with Nicolas Lapierre and Borja Garcia, BCN twins Hiroki Yoshimoto and Ernesto Viso will be looking for at least a podium this weekend. Lapierre and Garcia have both sampled the bubbly in 2005 - as has Yoshimoto in France - but both the Japanese driver and his Venezuelan team-mate will feel that they are due a little good fortune as a missed call by the BCN team allowed a commanding wet-weather lead to evaporate - literally - in Turkey, dumping both men out of the points.
