Kamui Kobayashi continued to build on his success in the GP2 Asia Series by winning the second race of the opening round of the 'summer' competition in Barcelona - although he had to rely on a moment or two of hot-headedness from Asia champion Romain Grosjean.
The Japanese driver, starting from pole after finishing eighth in Saturday's feature, managed to fend off fellow front row starter Sebastien Buemi - albeit in robust fashion that saw the Swiss put two wheels on the grass - to claim the lead into turn one. Such was Buemi's loss of momentum that Grosjean snuck through from fourth to take up the pursuit of the leader, while Giorgio Pantano, Vitaly Petrov and Bruno Senna occupied the early points positions.
Further back, there was a moment of chaos as Alberto Valerio and Diego Nunes stalled on the grid, forcing those on the last few rows to take avoiding action, while Karun Chandhok caused a further reshuffle by spinning the second iSport car on lap one.
While Grosjean closed on Kobayashi entering lap two, just outside the points the two Piquet Sports cars were beginning a race-long war that would see them make contact on several occasions, although the first move, by Pastor Maldonado on Andi Zuber, was clean. The Austrian was off-line, however, and also lost a position to Luca Filippi, although that was swiftly regained when the luckless Italian pitted two laps later.
By that time, Grosjean had moved into first place, a position he became comfortable with during the Asian campaign. Once free of Kobayashi, the French-Swiss driver pulled away easily, opening out a three-second advantage by the end of lap six.
![Kamui Kobayashi - DAMS [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/432052.jpg)
