Boletins de Imprensa - Grosjean Holds out

Grosjean Holds out

Grosjean Junior held off stiff competition to win the Bahrain grand prix, but he had to work incredibly hard to do so. Grosjean lead from the start but on lap 5, the Australian Grand Prix winner Novikov took the lead of the race. But it was clear Grosjean was quick in the second half of his race stints and retook the lead on Lap 11. But in another change for the Lead Novikov managed to jump Grosjean in the pit lane but they both had to pass Vanderpuije who's Audi team seemed to be on a different strategy, Which would fall flat eventually after too many mistakes from the Canadian. Then once again the same happened, Grosjean was quick at the end of his stint and took the lead back from Novikov on lap 30, by which point Rapido had driven his McLaren into 3rd. Subsequently Novikov pitted as soon as he'd dropped behind the leading Red Bull. But this time Grosjean got out ahead of Novikov only to be overtaken on track! Novikov now lead with less than half the race to go. But on lap 42 Novikov failed to hold out as his Jordan slowed in the second half of the stint again! But this time it was worse as Rapido followed through a lap later. It soon became a two horse race as Novikov fell away from the leaders but was quick enough to stay ahead of the BMW's who were an impressive 4th and 5th. Rapido kept Grosjean honest to the line and although he got the gap down to less than a second on numerious occasions, he was never close enough to pass. It meant Grosjean fought of all the competition to win his and Red Bull's first race of the season. Rapido was a very close second with Novikov two seconds back. As for the two boys who qualified poorly, Di Rado got his McLaren to a lonely 10th to score points but De Montferrand made a mistake late on which may of been the difference from a strong result as he finished 11th.

RESULTS
1-Grosjean Jr, 2-Rapido, 3-Novikov, 4-Bezrukov, 5-Kalinin, 6-Berger Jr, 7-Da Costa Jr, 8-Pedro Lamy, 9-Maurer, 10-Di Rado

STANDINGS
1-Novikov [40], 2-Rapido [36], 3-Grosjean Jr [29], 4-Berger Jr [16], 5-De Montferrand [15], 6-Di Rado [13], 7-Bezrukov [12], 8-Kalinin [12], 9-Vanderpuije [10], 10-Da Costa Jr [4], [Zatacka, Lamy, Maurer and Wayne are the only other scorers]

TEAM STANDINGS
1-McLaren [49], 2-Jordan [46], 3-Red Bull [44], 4-BMW [24], 5-Sempre Senna [18], 6-Audi [11], 7-Windsor [10], [everyone else is yet to score]