At the front, meanwhile, Chandhok was wasting no time in making the most of his lead, while di Grassi, appearing troubled by his brakes, fell into the clutches of Zuber. Twice the pair swapped positions before the Austrian finally a move stick, while Senna began his move towards the sharp end by disposing of Parente at the hairpin.
Fifth would become third for the iSport driver not long after, as Maldonado proved less adept at dealing with di Grassi than Piquet Sports team-mate Zuber had. Although di Grassi may have braked earlier than the Venezuelan had been expecting approaching the hairpin on lap eight, Maldonado appeared not to brake at all as he slammed into the back of the Campos machine, damaging its rear end before sending it into the run-off area. The incident ruined di Grassi's 100 per cent scoring record since returning to the category, while Maldonado made it back to the pits for a new nose, but possible sanction after another apparently avoidable incident.
Grosjean and Javi Villa were promoted to scoring positions by the clash, and the Frenchman - phlegmatic after losing his win on Saturday - made short work of Parente to move up to fourth. Villa, too, passed the Portuguese driver but, with the field now becoming spread out, was too far from Grosjean to contemplate challenging for fourth. With Ho-Pin Tung similarly removed from the rear of Parente, the points were pretty much set once Zuber, after a few laps of pressure, fell away from Chandhok.
That left the excitement to come from outside the top six, where Sebastien Buemi pulled off a well-planned three-corner move on Mike Conway for ninth, and Kamui Kobayashi set about recovering from both the back of the grid and a mid-race clash with Diego Nunes in front of the Mercedes faithful to climb high enough to qualify for the fastest lap bonus.
![Karun Chandhok - iSport International [pic credit: GP2 Series Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/459159.jpg)
