The leaders, meanwhile, ploughed on, making the most of their advantage over the pack to build up a comfortable gap before considering their mandatory tyre change. Pantano continued to ease away from the battle behind, with only the recovering Senna matching him for pace, while Zuber appeared content to wait for the pits to make his move on Grosjean.
The battle for ninth now became the best on the circuit, with d'Ambrosio fending off Carroll and Maldonado. The Venezuelan was in typically feisty mood, attempting to make the most of any move Carroll made on the Belgian at the front of the group. d'Ambrosio, meanwhile, did not appear to have the pace of those behind, and defended robustly, edging Carroll towards the pit-wall on lap 19. The Ulsterman eventually won through, however,passing his rival into turn one a lap later.
Maldonado attempted to capitalise but, in his haste to keep tabs on the FMSI car, made contact with d'Ambrosio's DAMS example, incurring sufficient damage to end his challenge for points in the pits for the second race running.
With fourth-placed Chandhok pitting for tyres on lap 19, the leaders had 45 seconds in hand over the pack, but it could still all have gone wrong when Alberto Valerio, who had been running an unexpected fifth, lost it over the bumps in the high-speed turn eight and rotated to a halt in the middle of the road.
With the safety car summoned, Pantano, Grosjean and Zuber knew they had to make their pi-stops count immediately. All received solid service from their teams, resuming in the same order as they had arrived, but deep in a queue as the pace car picked up at random. Fortunately for the nerves of all intimately involved with the top three, the backmarkers were waved through until Pantano was back at the head of the pack.
![Giorgio Pantano - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/432057.jpg)
