Vitaly Petrov claimed the first international race victory on the new 'street' circuit in Valencia, but only after having to play second fiddle to a rampant Giorgio Pantano until the last of the 34 scheduled laps.
Pantano had made the most of his hard-earned pole position to pull out an immediate gap as the group behind, led by the fast-starting Petrov, who passed Pastor Maldonado off the line. Although his progress was delayed by a safety car called to clear first lap incidents involving Ho-Pin Tung, Kamui Kobayashi and Racing Engineering Javier Villa, Pantano was quickly back down to business, extending his lead over the next few laps.
While the Italian veteran pulled away, Petrov did all he could to keep Maldonado behind him, while Romain Grosjean and Bruno Senna gave chase. Andi Zuber, having swapped places with Grosjean on lap one, held station in sixth before following Senna in for his mandatory pit-stop on lap ten.
Grosjean and Petrov had also pitted by the time Pantano was called in for his stop by Racing Engineering on lap 14 and, like the Russian, the points leader emerged with a clear track ahead of him. Unencumbered by traffic, Pantano was able to re-establish his commanding position at the front of the field, while Petrov gave what appeared to be vain chase.
Maldonado, meanwhile, emerged in fifth place - the field being temporarily headed by the late-stopping Lucas di Grassi - after both Petrov and Grosjean managed to squeeze between him and Pantano, but was quickly on the Frenchman's case. Senna was a place further back, trying to make the best of an eighth place start that had at least allowed him to vault Zuber just before the safety car appeared on lap one.
The Brazilian gave notice of just how tricky the new surface around Valencia's Americas Cup port could be, however, his iSport entry oversteering exiting turn two and almost pitching him into the wall. Senna survived, but had lost time to Maldonado ahead of him and found himself circulating in something of a no man's land, especially after the chasing Zuber spun out in simialr fashion with eight laps to go.
![Vitaly Petrov - Barwa Campos International [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/482273.jpg)
