Alvaro Parente claimed victory in his first ever GP2 race today in race one at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, taking the top spot as the lights went out and then controlling the pace from the front despite race long pressure from Bruno Senna and Andreas Zuber.

The Portuguese driver stormed away at the start as pole sitter Pastor Maldonado bogged down on the grid and then was never headed, withstanding a brief attack in the opening laps from Zuber and then keeping his head at an early stop for the entire field as a result of a safety car tore-emerge ahead  of  and  Senna  and  stay  there.  Maldonado’s  slow  start  caused  problems  further  back, contracting  the  grid  into  turn  one  where  Christian  Bakkerud  collected  Luca  Filippi,  and  then  Ben Hanley at the same spot one lap later, which caused Roldan Rodriguez and Ho-Pin Tung to come together  behind  them. 

With  Mike  Conway  also  stopped  on  the  front  straight,  there  was  no  other option but to bring out the safety car. The remainder of the field tore into the pits for their stops, with Parente easing out ahead of Senna, who leapfrogged Zuber for second on track ahead of Giorgio Pantano, Adrian Valles, Vitaly Petrov and  Sébastien  Buemi.  Romain  Grosjean  was  not  giving  up  without  a  fight,  however,  and  tore through the field as though they weren’t there, with Maldonado also pushing hard to make up for his poor start as he fought from the back of the field.

Unfortunately  familiarity  with  the  circuit  meant  that  for  almost  every  lunge  from  behind  a  counter move  from  in  front  maintained  the  status  quo  throughout  the  race,  meaning that the fierce fights throughout  the  field  gave  little  reward  to  the  drivers  behind.  And  with  unprecedented  levels  of reliability there were no gifts for anyone today.

Nevertheless  there  was  no  doubt  that  Parente  deserved  his  maiden  win  after  a  gritty  display  of determination  to  hold  on  from  Senna  and  Zuber,  with  Pantano  holding  on  ahead  of  Grosjean, Petrov, Buemi and Kamui Kobayashi, with Valles claiming the final point for fastest lap on his final tour after stopping for new tyres in the closing stages of the race.