A moment’s misjudgement by Giorgio Pantano at the Hungaroring cost him vital points in the championship. And it handed Bruno Senna an opportunity to reduce the gap between the pair in the title race which the iSport driver did not waste.
Senna finished third behind winner Lucas di Grassi and Andreas Zuber, the pair nose-to-tail for much of the second half of the race.
The race got off to a frantic start as Romain Grosjean fumbled his getaway from pole position and dropped to sixth. He was quickly overtaken by a stream of cars and found himself defending from Pantano.
On lap two Pantano dived around the outside of the ART car at turn five but left Grosjean too little room to make the corner and the pair touched. Pantano slithered off the track and resumed in 21st.
Senna had grabbed fourth at the start which became third when Vitaly Petrov retired. Senna’s team mate Karun Chandhok took fourth ahead of Pastor Maldonado, the Venezuelan moving up from last to fifth by leaving his pit stop very late.
Mike Conway was chased across the line by Sebastien Buemi in sixth and seventh. Andy Soucek took the final point for eighth – and pole position for tomorrow’s sprint race – by leading Jerom d’Ambrosio across the line.