GP2 Series veteran Giorgio Pantano has targeted the championship title after completing a faultless start to the Istanbul race weekend with victory in Saturday's feature race for Racing Engineering.
Already appearing to be in a class of his own after dominating both free practice and qualifying, the Italian pulled away easily from the battling duo of Romain Grosjean and Andi Zuber and only had his margin of victory reduced by a late safety car period.
Pantano showed just how quickly he and Racing Engineering have gelled with a superb display to take pole position, having been quick from the onset. Using his seven years of experience at GP2 level to ensure he got the maximum from his car, he was soon at the top of the practice timesheets, eventually setting a time of 1min 33.815secs - the only driver to lap under 1min 34secs.
Qualifying was then simply a case of continuing the work that he and the team had achieved in practice, and Pantano didn't disappoint by dominating the session to take pole in a time of 1min 32.659secs, his quickest lap a quarter of a second faster than nearest rival Zuber.
"For me, it was perfect and we did the job," the veteran commented, "I was feeling, from this morning, that the car was very good. I was feeling okay with the car, the circuit, the tyres - everything. We did the job because everything was there. The engineers, the mechanics did their job, we've improved the car from Barcelona and now we see the difference. Now we are on pole, we are on the top."
The two points awarded for pole moved Pantano into a share of the lead in the drivers' championship, while Racing Engineering assumed control of the teams' competition.
![Feature race podium in Turkey - Romain Grosjean, Giorgio Pantano, Andi Zuber [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/437631.jpg)
