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Grosjean wins bizarre sprint race

Romain Grosjean won the GP2 sprint race in Turkey with a superb drive from seventh on the grid, but the race will be remembered for Bruno Senna's exit - when he hit a stray dog

Adam Carroll led from pole, but his clutch failed almost immediately. Multiple pile-ups at Turn 1 and Turn 3 then brought out the safety car, with yesterday's podium finisher Andi Zuber the highest-placed casualty.

At the start, Vitaly Petrov had dived down the inside to grab the lead from third on the grid, ahead of Sebastien Buemi, Javier Villa and Grosjean.

Grosjean passed Villa at the chicane on lap four and quickly closed on Buemi, dispensing with him on the back straight two laps later.

Petrov put up a sterner defence, but Grosjean eventually passed him at Turn 12 at the end of lap 11.

Just after that, two dogs ran onto the circuit, and sixth placed Senna, who had worked his way up from 15th on the grid, struck one at high speed, smashing his car's right-front corner and leaving Senna livid.

The safety car was required again, as marshals rounded up the other canine track invader. At the restart, Grosjean caught Petrov napping, before pulling out a huge lead to the finish.

Petrov kept Buemi at bay for second, ahead of Saturday winner Giorgio Pantano, Mike Conway and Ben Hanley - both Britons doing well to score points from lowly grid positions.

Both Villa and Karun Chandhok should have finished in the points, but they both spun while battling with each other and would finish 15th and 12th respectively.

Pos  Driver            Team                  Time
 1.  Romain Grosjean   ART Grand Prix        41:53.377
 2.  Vitaly Petrov     Campos Team           +   8.019
 3.  Sebastien Buemi   Arden                 +   8.447
 4.  Giorgio Pantano   Racing Engineering    +   9.897
 5.  Mike Conway       Trident Racing        +  11.508
 6.  Benjamin Hanley   Campos Team           +  12.847
 7.  Alberto Valerio   Durango               +  14.150
 8.  Alvaro Parente    Super Nova Racing     +  16.329
 9.  Kamui Kobayashi   DAMS                  +  17.533
10.  Diego Nunes       DPR                   +  24.392
11.  Giacomo Ricci     DPR                   +  24.850
12.  Karun Chandhok    iSport International  +  25.743
13.  Roldan Rodriguez  FMS International     +  26.094
14.  Luca Filippi      ART Grand Prix        +  26.450
15.  Javier Villa      Racing Engineering    +  27.449
16.  Milos Pavlovic    BCN Competicion       +1:24.665

Retirements:

     Driver            Team                  Laps
     Bruno Senna       iSport International  11
     Adam Carroll      FMS International     0
     Andreas Zuber     Piquet Sports         0
     Adrian Valles     BCN Competicion       0
     Ho-Pin Tung       Trident Racing        0
     Yelmer Buurman    Team Arden            0
     Andy Soucek       Super Nova Racing     0
     Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS                  0
     Pastor Maldonado  Piquet Sports         0

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