Posted on 6th April 2014
The first Feature Race of the tenth GP2 Series season saw a rookie win on his GP2 debut for the fourth time in Series history. Stoffel Vandoorne joined Heikki Kovalainen, Ãlvaro Parente and Charles Pic on the short and illusive list.
Felipe Nasr's first reverse grid pole position since Belgium 2012 didn't translate into a great start as the Brazilian driver tumbled to fifth, relinquishing the lead to Simon Trummer. The Swiss driver led Jolyon Palmer, Julián Leal and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs. Raffaele Marciello and Stefano Coletti were the two drivers who made the worst starts; the Racing Engineering duo stalled and were pushed to the pits to restart there.
A couple of laps into the race, Jolyon Palmer seized the lead from Trummer and led the Rapax driver and Leál in a short train for the remainder of the race. Stoffel Vandoorne went from hero to making contact with Daniël de Jong at turn four which damaged his front wing and forced him in for repairs. Alexander Rossi suffered a small misfortune for the second race in a row and had to make an unscheduled pit-stop to replace a punctured right-rear tyre.
The most exhilarating battles were outside the points paying positions. Daniel Abt, Rio Haryanto, Nat Berthon, Johnny Cecotto and Jon Lancaster were battling for P14 for a few laps with Abt coming out on top. Conor Daly and Rio Haryanto's fight for position was just getting into the swing of things until Daly ran over and errant turning vein which damaged his Lazarus car beyond repair.
Artem Markelov continued an impressive debut by quietly making his way past his rivals and up to P10; less than one second away from his first haul of GP2 points.
In the closing laps, Felipe Nasr finally found his way past Adrian Quaife-Hobbs when the Briton's tyres fell off the cliff. Stéphane Richelmi made a little contact with Arthur Pic to make his way further up the order and he also past Quaife-Hobbs to finish in fifth.
At the head of the race, Jolyon Palmer sealed his fourth GP2 Series win, and first with DAMS, ahead of Simon Trummer who made his debut on a GP2 podium with second place. Remarkably, this was also Trummer's first podium since an International Formula Master race in Belgium back in 2009. Julián Leal second podium finish of the weekend confirmed his position of second in the drivers' standings.
Position Driver Team Gap
1 J. Palmer DAMS 41:02.484
2 S. Trummer Rapax 0.809
3 J. Leal Carlin 1.430
4 F. Nasr Carlin 8.719
5 S. Richelmi DAMS 16.416
6 A. Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 17.680
7 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 18.012
8 R. Binder Arden International 19.791
9 A. Pic Campos Racing 19.977
10 A. Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 20.678
11 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 21.086
12 T. Izawa ART Grand Prix 21.713
13 D. Abt Hilmer Motorsport 29.171
14 J. Cecotto Trident 33.500
15 J. Lancaster MP Motorsport 34.017
16 R. Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 35.778
17 N. Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 38.028
18 A. Negrão Arden International 38.524
19 K. Sato Campos Racing 39.439
20 F. Regalia Hilmer Motorsport 44.065
21 A. Jefferies Trident 48.583
22 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 49.324
23 S. Coletti Racing Engineering 80.944
24 R. Marciello Racing Engineering 1 LAP
25 A. Rossi EQ8 Caterham Racing 1 LAP
26 C. Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus DNF
