Luca Filippi was the acclaimed winner of the opening race of GP2's first visit to Indonesia for a matter of hours, until it was discovered that his car did not meet the regulations.
The Italian had battled back from a poor mandatory pit-stop in the opening laps to reclaim what looked certain to be second position, only to be handed the lead when poleman Vitaly Petrov spun off on lap 26 of 46. Although both Bruno Senna and Hiroki Yoshimoto continued to run ahead of Filippi at that point, both still had to make their obligatory stops and, when they were then assessed a drive-thru' penalty for passing the safety car at the second restart, Filippi was left out front for real.
Although he then came under threat from Sebastien Buemi in the closing stages - the pair running so close at the chequered flag that they completed another lap at racing speed before realising that the race was over - Filippi was officially declared the winner by a scant tenth of a second.
However, the early pit-stop - taken during a prolonged safety car period to clear cars abandoned after a first lap accident - would come back to haunt Filippi when it was discovered that his car had been inadvertently fitted with a
Bridgestone Potenza marked for use by team-mate Yoshimoto. With tyre allocations strictly controlled by the rules, the stewards had no alternative but to exclude the winner and the Qi Meritus Mahara team, which had succumbed to its inexperience in the series.
Filippi had been on the pace from the start of the weekend, running in the top five in practice and qualifying second to Petrov in a rain-affected session. Although he dropped behind Adrian Valles during the ill-fated pit-stop, he cleverly boxed the Spaniard in to reclaim a virtual second place while they made their way through those who hadn't pitted and even challenged Petrov briefly before the Russian made his mistake.
![Luca Filippi - QI-Meritus Mahara [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/404016.jpg)
