Giorgio Pantano regained the advantage in the GP2 Series championship standings with a comfortable, if somewhat fortunate, victory with which to celebrate his 100th start at that level, and then survived having it slashed after an error denied him extra points on Sunday.
The Italian did everything expected of him by winning Saturday's feature race at Magny-Cours, taking fastest lap to add to his second win of the year, on the day when he became the most experienced driver in GP2. Having spent the best part of seven seasons in either F3000 or GP2, Pantano finally racked up 100 starts either side of an abortive stint in
F1 with Jordan, and was determined to celebrate the milestone.
He made a great start to pass front row man Romain Grosjean as the cars left the grid, slotting the Repsol/Telefónica-backed Racing Engineering Dallara into second spot behind pole-sitter Bruno Senna. Having ended the opening lap right on the Brazilian's tail, as the two cars crossed the line just 0.6secs apart, the two leaders proved evenly matched as they dropped Grosjean.
Both Pantano and Senna made their mandatory pit-stops on lap 18 but, despite the usual solid service from his crew, the Italian lost a place to Grosjean, who had stopped a couple of laps earlier. Grosjean then passed Senna, and Pantano didn't have to wait too long to follow suit as, on lap 21, the iSport car slowed dramatically with clutch problems.
The gap between first and second was now holding steady at around a second but, as the cars came to complete their 33rd lap, Pantano received another slice of luck as Grosjean too suddenly slowed. With just eight laps left to run, and a nine-second lead over returnee Lucas di Grassi, the Italian was able to take it easy as he completed the remaining distance to clinch a series record-equalling seventh win.
![Giorgio Pantano - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 Series Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/459179.jpg)
