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Giovinazzi wins and takes championship lead

2016 GP2 Series Round 10 Sepang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Friday 30 September 2016. Antonio Giovinazzi (ITA, PREMA Racing) Photo: Sam Bloxham/GP2 Series Media Service. ref: Digital Image _SLA4066

Antonio Giovinazzi wins the feature race at Sepang ahead of Sergey Sirotkin and Norman Nato. Pierre Gasly finishes out of the points.


Pierre Gasly started from pole position ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi and Raffaele Marciello. Artem Markelov left his car on track during the first formation lap. Two extra formation laps were necessary to retrieve Markelov’s car.

Gasly was stuck on the grid and dropped down the order to P5 in the first turn and P10 at the end of the first lap. Marciello and Giovinazzi were fighting for the lead but the Prema driver took the advantage.  Sergey Sirotkin managed to make himself up to P2.

Further in the back, Racing Engineering and DAMS cars were battling for position although Nicholas Latifi went wide and Lynn complained about his DRS not working on the start-finish line.

The first pit-stops happened on the seventh lap with Gasly pitting first, Nato pitting one lap later. Sirotkin was the first of the top 3 to stop, one lap before Marciello who lost a lot of time in the pits and got out behind Lynn. On the eleventh lap, Giovinazzi stopped and got out behind of Sirotkin.

Halfway through the race, most drivers who started with hard tyres pitted which allowed Sirotkin and Giovinazzi to battle on track and Giovinazzi passed Sirotkin with authority. Gasly, in great difficulty, was kicked out of the points.

Giovinazzi won the race and took back the lead of the championship ahead of Sirotkin and Nato. Lynn, King, Marciello, Ghiotto, Evans, Malja and Canamasas completed the top 10, Gasly finishing P11.