Having seen his six-second lead wiped out by the safety car, Grosjean was naturally keen to re-establish his advantage, but showed his inexperience by making a mistake at the chicane even before the pace car had pulled off. Having recovered from a trip across the kerbs, the Frenchman lacked sufficient momentum to pull away from Kobayashi as the field flashed across the start-finish line, giving the DAMS driver a run into turn one.
Desperate not to be overhauled, Grosjean moved from right to left, forcing Kobayashi across the outside kerbs and onto the grass verge, before taking his usual line into turn one. Neither driver lost a position, but the stewards reacted immediately, slapping Grosjean with a drive-thru penalty and effectively handing Kobayashi the win.
It took three laps for Grosjean to accept his punishment, which dropped him to a lowly 13th, while Kobayashi proceeded untroubled to the flag, claiming his third GP2 win of 2008. Behind him, Buemi continued to rebuff Pantano to claim yet another second place, while the Italian completed the podium for a Spanish team.
Senna had assumed fifth on Petrov's demise, and translated that into fourth - and a share of the points lead with feature race winner Alvaro Parente - with Grosjean's penalty, coming home ahead of Davide Valsecchi and the second Racing Engineering car of Javi Villa, both of whom had benefited from the Piquet Sport 'problem' to score points.
Parente should have been able to add to his Saturday haul, but a bad start dropped him behind the likes of Maldonado, Filippi, Valsecchi and Villa on lap one and he proved unable to overcome that handicap.