Romain  Grosjean  took  a  last  gasp  win  after  following  championship  rival  Giorgio  Pantano  for most  of  the  race  when  a  late  storm  upset  the  series  leader's  rhythm  over  the  closing  laps, allowing the Frenchman to nip past for victory. With mayhem behind them the pair had a long wait to see would join them on the podium: Alvaro Parente held his nerve ahead of the chasing pack to claim a long overdue bottle of champagne as he joined them on the third step.

The start of the race took place under blue skies, with Pantano and Grosjean getting away well from  the  grid  while  Andreas  Zuber's  slow  start  bunched  up  their  pursuers  into  the  first  turn: Sébastien  Buemi,  Lucas  di  Grassi,  Bruno  Senna  and  Javier  Villa were soon squabbling among themselves for the remaining podium position, but a string of fastest laps shared evenly between them  mean  Pantano  and  Grosjean  were  able  to  easily  despatch  the  rest  of  the  field  and concentrate on a race long battle for the lead.

There were plenty of other fights all through the field as the race developed: Buemi, di Grassi and Senna  were  scrapping  constantly  for  third,  with  Senna  eventually  out-dragging  his  countryman down  the  long  back  straight  and  then  putting  himself  in  the  Swiss  driver's  wheel  tracks,  while behind  them  Karun  Chandhok  and  Villa  were  equally  determined  to  outdo  each  other,  but  with seven laps to go everything changed. The rain came seemingly out of nowhere, dumping down on the circuit with awesome force and handing the pitlane an awful dilemma: keep their drivers out and hope that they can hold on, or bring them in for wet tyres and lose positions.

The leading pair couldn't come in, so intense was their on-track battle, while behind car after car was spinning or spearing off into the barriers no matter which set of tyres they had. With five laps to go Grosjean took his chance and tiptoed by as Pantano tried desperately to hold to no avail: behind them Villa looked like he had done enough after Buemi fell off track to hold on for third but found the wall on dry tyres on the final lap, while Senna (who changed to wets) was still  sliding  all  over  the  circuit  as  he  fought  to  contain  Zuber,  who  slid  into  the  wall  next  to  the Spaniard.

The  result  wasn't  clear  until  the  chequered  flag,  when  Parente  crossed  the  line  for  third  with Senna,  di  Grassi,  Pastor  Maldonado,  Andy  Soucek  and  Karun  Chandhok  finishing  nose  to  tail behind  the  Portuguese  driver. 

While  Pantano  was  despondent  at  having  lost  a  win  that  he had thought was in the bag, his second place and fastest lap meant that he extended his lead to 61 points ahead of Senna on 44, while Grosjean moves up to 33 points ahead of di Grassi on 28 and Buemi and Parente on 25.