Instead of it being a race out of the tight pit-lane that grabbed the attention, however, it was the pair's position relative to Grosjean on track that mattered, for the local ace had been putting in quick laps once his rubber was up to temperature and was threatening to grab the lead.
As it turned out, Senna just had a quick enough turnaround from the iSport crew to emerge from the blend lane and cut cross Grosjean's nose, while Pantano had to accept a temporary fourth place as new leader Mike Conway waited several more of laps to make his compulsory stop.
By the time the Monaco race winner had made that call, the other Principality victor, Senna, had lost the advantage. Grosjean had taken an early look at the Brazilian as the pair headed into Adelaide after Senna rejoined, but had to wait until second time around to make a move stick. Even then, the ART car came from a long way back, but Senna made no real move to oppose the pass.
Two laps later it became apparent why, as Senna was quickly caught and passed by Pantano, the iSport car reduced to a crawl by clutch failure. Senna later revealed that he had been struggling with the problem since before his pit-stop, but had soldiered on until the part gave up completely.
Grosjean and Pantano both closed on Conway before the Briton stopped, and the Italian appeared to have a shot at overhauling his French rival over the next couple of laps, having reduced the margin between them to less than a second. However, the heat and traffic meant otherwise, and Grosjean soon had the situation under control, easing out vital tenths here and there to re-establish a comfortable advantage.
Incredibly, with a home win in his sights, the GP2 Asia Series champion was denied, reduced to hobbling back to the pits as he too ran into mechanical gremlins. Although the clutch was affected, Grosjean suggested a litany of problems, beginning with a long-running hydraulic pressure drop that affected the engine and gearbox as well. Stuck in first gear, he just about made it back to the pits, but there was nothing he or the team could do.
![Giorgio Pantano - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/438550.jpg)
