Local favourite Romain Grosjean set the pace in free practice at his home circuit of Magny-Cours as the GP2 Series returned to action after a four-week break from racing.
The ART Grand Prix driver took top spot in the half-hour session by less that two-tenths of a second from Andreas Zuber and Javier Villa, with regular frontrunners Giorgio Pantano and Pastor Maldonado also in close attendance.
Grosjean's best lap time of 1min 22.676secs was set just after the Frenchman had changed to his second set of tyres, and his rivals proved unable to match his pace for the remainder of the session. Zuber came closest before having to settle for a seemingly customary second spot, while Villa's third-placed time was remarkable in itself, as the Spaniard set the mark in the opening minutes before putting his car into the wall at turn three, ruling him out of the remainder of the session.
“Magny-Cours circuit is interesting and very challenging,” Grosjean said before the weekend, “There are a lot of fast corners, and two really fast chicanes, but there are a lot of slow corners as well, so the balance for set-up is not easy to find. It's also hard to find the right line, because a lot of the corners are blind, and the circuit goes up and down. You can lose a lot of time if you miss your turn-in. The track also has a lot more grip, as it has been resurfaced recently. It should be an interesting race this year.”
The session took place under ominously heavy clouds, but the top drivers were immediately on the pace and setting faster times than last year. Andy Soucek, Pantano and Zuber were the early pacesetters but, further back, a number of drivers were pushing over the limit. Maldonado, in particular, had a number of off-track excursions, along with Alberto Valerio and Villa, who at least set a fast time before finding the wall.
![Romain Grosjean - ART Grand Prix [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/432049.jpg)
