'En-Cours' marks Pantano century.

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.

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.

That left Pantano enjoying a sizeable advantage over di Grassi, but hoping that the leader's jinx would not spread to the Racing Engineering entry. He need not have worried, for the final seven laps passed off without incident, di Grassi never close enough to threaten and the backmarkers polite enough not to impede his progress.

Crossing the line, it was clear what success at the 100th time of asking meant to Pantano, the Italian punching the air repeatedly as he equalled Timo Glock's series record seventh win to move back into the lead of a championship he covets dearly, despite his years spent chasing it.

di Grassi was equally comfortable in second, with Maldonado a safe distance behind as he completed the podium. There was more competition for fourth place as Zuber harried the second Campos car of Petrov to the line, while Jerome d'Ambrosio - another to benefit from good pit strategy - Chandhok and Conway completed the scorers.

Parente's comeback terminated in ninth, one place shy of transforming the Portuguese from one end of the grid to the other as eighth proved just out of reach, while the action continued down into the pack as Yelmer Buurman defended twelfth with all the road and more under pressure from Andy Soucek and Javi Villa.