He may not have won either of the race but for me Romain Grosjean was the star of the GP2 Asia races at Sepang.
He stuck his ART car on pole by over three-quarters of a second, before becoming the something-hundredth driver to stall the notoriously flaky Mk 1 GP2 machine. Once he got going again he was hugely quick around the sodden Sepang track, passing car after car until his steering was deranged by contact with an overly defensive Milos Pavlovic.
After having his car checked in the pits he resumed to finish ninth – one place off a point and pole position for race two. Vitaly Petrov won from Fairuz Fauzy, the race having to be re-started early on after a rain shower provoked a chaotic first lap.
In the sprint race Grosjean whittled through the field to finish four seconds behind the winner, his 2007 F3 team mate Kamui Kobayashi. But had there been a couple more laps he surely would have won.
There are four races left in the series, two at Bahrain next week and two more at Dubai, where Grosjean dominated the opening races in January. He has 35 points to Petrov’s 24 and must be favourite for the title. And he’s looked good in the new GP2 machinery that he’ll be racing in Europe soon as well…
