Giorgio Pantano marked his 100th race at F3000 and GP2 level with a record-equalling seventh career victory after taking advantage of mechanical problems that befell both Bruno Senna and Romain Grosjean.
Starting from third on the grid, the Italian veteran made the most of being on the cleaner side of the road to jink in front of front row starter Grosjean and drop in behind poleman Senna as the field streamed through the opening sequence of corners. Unusually for GP2, the pack made it through unscathed, although it had already lost Kamui Kobayashi, who stalled on the grid and was forced into an early retirement.
The Adelaide hairpin also passed off without incident, but squabbling in the pack soon allowed the top three to open a healthy advantage. Returnee Lucas di Grassi had also benefited from being on the odd side of the grid, assuming an early fourth place, ahead of Pastor Maldonado and Vitaly Petrov, while the Venezuelan's Piquet Sports team-mate, Andi Zuber, paid the penalty of being on the dirty side as he dropped back to seventh.
As expected at Magny-Cours there was precious little in the way of meaningful overtaking moves, although there were plenty of attempts in the middle of the pack, notably from Alvaro Parente, who had already picked off a handful of backmarkers as he attempted to overturn his last place on the grid.
Eighth-placed Sebastien Buemi was the first potential pointscorer to make his mandatory pit-stop, waiting until lap 13 to suck in from the final corner. The Swiss was closely followed Zuber, with Grosjean and Petrov coming in a further lap on.
The timing of the stops, and the speed of the work carried out in the them, again proved crucial, with Grosjean returning to the fray as the best-placed of those to have taken on new tyres. It was some three more laps, however, until the two men who had been running ahead of him pitted, with Maldonado, Karun Chandhok and di Grassi all stopping before Senna and Pantano pulled off in unison.
![Giorgio Pantano - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/438550.jpg)
