Site icon FormulaRapida.net

Vandoorne wins his debut race

Stoffel Vandoorne got his first victory on his debut weekend in GP2. Julián Leal and Jolyon Palmer joined him on the podium in this first race in Bahrain.

Most drivers started on softs. Jolyon Palmer had a bad start from pole and lost many positions. Daniel Abt, who started 3rd, also had many problems. However, the rookie Stoffel Vandoorne had a great start and got the lead of the race. Stéphane Richelmi went up to 2nd position, followed by Stefano Coletti.

On the third lap, Axcil Jefferies had a big impact after contact when defending from Kimiya Sato, so the Safety Car was deployed. After the SC went in, almost half of the drivers did their pit stop to change to the hard tyre.

Seven drivers stayed on track, making their tyres last longer than the other, which would give them a huge advantage of pace at the end of the race. In the fight for the points, Pic overtook Richelmi for the 8th place. He also passed through Evans and Haryanto, who were suffering a lot of degradation on their tyres and would end up losing a lot of positions.

With 3 laps to go, Leal started putting pressure on Palmer and overtook him for the third place, with Simon Trummer yet to pit. He finally pitted with two laps to go and went out 9th, managing to overtake two drivers and finishing 7th after having started from the pit lane. Takuya Izawa, also with softs, overtook Nasr for 6th. At the end of the race Coletti was pushing Palmer but was not able to overtake him.

Vandoorne crossed the line first followed by Leal (who had started from P12) and Palmer. Coletti was 4th followed by Pic, Izawa (starting 23rd), Trummer and Nasr, who will start from pole with reverse grid tomorrow. Binder and Quaife-Hobbs also got points for finishing 9th and 10th.

Result:

Pos Driver Team Gap Points
1 #10 Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 32 Laps 25
2 #4 Julián Leal Carlin 1.5 18
3 #7 Joylon Palmer Dams 5.8 15
4 #6 Stefano Coletti Racing Engineering 6.3 12
5 #26 Arthur Pic Campos Racing 15.1 10
6 #9 Takuya Izawa ART Grand Prix 21.7 8
7 #15 Simon Trummer Rapax 21.9 6
8 #3 Felipe Nasr Carlin 24.4 4
9 #16 Rene Binder Arden International 24.8 2
10 #14 Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 26.1 1
11 #20 Daniel De Jong MP Motorsport 27.0
12 #25 Conor Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 31.9
13 #11 Daniel Abt Hilmer Motorsport 36.2
14 #1 Mitch Evans RT Russian Time 36.9
15 #2 Artem Markelov RT Russian Time 41.0
16 #18 Rio Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 41.7
17 #21 Jon Lancaster MP Motorsport 42.4
18 #5 Raffaele Marciello Racing Engineering 46.8
19 #8 Stéphane Richelmi Dams 49.6
20 #17 André Negrao Arden International 62.3
21 #23 Johnny Cecotto Trident 73.4
22 #19 Alexander Rossi EQ8 Caterham Racing 94.5
23 #24 Nathanaël Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 2Laps
#27 Kimiya Sato Campos Racing 5Laps
#22 Acil Jefferies Trident 30Laps
#12 Facu Regalia Hilmer Motorsport 32Laps