Sebastien Buemi wins as Senna closes on Pantano (GP2)

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Sebastien Buemi snatched victory from Andy Soucek

Sebastien Buemi scored his second win in a sprint race this year with a measured drive at the Hungaroring.

The Swiss driver capitalised on a mistake by early leader Andy Soucek halfway through the race and smoothly pulled out a commanding lead in the heat at Hungary.

Bruno Senna made up vital ground in his championship battle with Giorgio Pantano, finishing third and taking two points off the fifth-placed Italian driver.

Senna ran sixth in the early stages but moved up after Lucas di Grassi hit Mike Conway, knocking the British driver out of third. Di Grassi later received a drive-through penalty for the move and left the pits right behind Conway again, finally passing him successfully on the last lap.

Late in the race a three-way battle for second had developed between Soucek, Pastor Maldonado and Senna. But Maldonado’s Piquet sports car was visibly losing fluid and it ground to a halt with three laps to go.

Senna was briefly delayed dodging Maldonado and Soucek pulled out a two-second lead with two laps left. But Senna attacked Soucek’s advantage and the two came across the finishing line on the final lap side-by-side, Soucek ahead by just 0.088s.

Sakon Yamamoto finished fourth and Pantano limited the damage to his championship lead with fifth. Javier Villa was sixth, having let team mate Pantano pass him earlier on.

The result cuts Pantano’s title lead to seven points with six races remaining:

GP2 championship standings

Giorgio Pantano 65
Bruno Senna 58
Lucas di Grassi 39
Romain Grosjean 36
Sebastien Buemi 34
Karun Chandhok 31
Alvaro Parente 26

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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