Vandoorne takes feature race win in Monaco

May 25, 2015
3 min read

Stoffel Vandoorne wins the third Feature Race of the season on the Circuit de Monaco, crossing the finish line 6.2 seconds ahead of today’s pole sitter Alexander Rossi. Sergio Canamasas completed the podium on P3, benefitting from Julián Leal’s 10 second time penalty which classified the Colombian 6th even though he saw the chequered flag 3rd. Round 3 of the 2015’s GP2 Season takes place on the legendary streets of Monaco with an unusual time schedule of Free Practice and Qualifying on Thursday, Race 1 on Friday morning and Race 2 on Saturday evening. For the weekend Pirelli nominated their softest compounds with P Zero Yellow soft as prime and P Zero Red supersoft as option tyres. The in two groups divided Qualifying made Alexander Rossi (Racing Engineering) start today’s race from pole position. The American set his fastest time on a drying out track in the second half of Qualifying, which was used of Group B (all drivers with even starting numbers). Raffaele Marciello (Trident) as fastest driver of Group A in rainy conditions started the Feature Race 2nd, while Stoffel Vandoorne’s record hunt for pole positions ended as he was beaten by the Italian in the first group. The ART driver started 4th. Just like in the first two races of this season, the top teams and drivers on the starting grid came up with different strategies. While Rossi, Vandoorne, Sergey Sirotkin (Rapax) and Leal (Carlin) of the top 6 started on Primes, Marciello and Arthur Pic (Campos Racing) went for Options. After the first formation lap Nobuharu Matsushita (ART Grand Prix) stalled on the grid, blocking the way for following drivers whose engines went off as a consequence. After a second formation lap, Pierre Gasly (DAMS) caused yellow flags and was forced to start the race from pit lane while the rest of the original grid was reformed to avoid having 4 empty starting spots. The third formation lap got underway at 11:35 am local time (GMT +2). Due to the start’s delay the race distance was shortened to 40 instead of 42 laps in Monaco. Marciello won the start against Rossi, immediately pulling off using the advantage of his softer tyres while Pic, Vandoorne and Sirotkin maintained their positions. After 7 laps all the advantage the Italian had was gone, as he struggled extremely on his tires causing a traffic jam including Rossi, Pic and Vandoorne who were not able to pass the leader until he and Pic came in for their mandatory pit stop in lap 9. The Frenchman jumped Marciello in stops, which made him gain a position while Rossi took the race lead over Vandoorne. Up to lap 20 in which the first virtual safety car of the race was deployed following a collision of Mitch Evans (Russian Time) and Nick Yelloly (Hilmer Motorsport), all drivers starting with race leader Rossi up to P9 were running on their first set of tyres. Pic on P10, 24.4 seconds off Rossi, made his option-prime-strategy work better than Marciello, who struggled keeping up the pace on his prime tyres. The first 6 drivers then pitted under virtual safety car when ART Grand Prix made the decisive move of the race being able to send Vandoorne back on track closely ahead of Rossi having had a slightly slower pit stop. Under green flag conditions since lap 21, Vandoorne lead the race ahead of Rossi, Leal, Pic, Canamasas, Sirotkin, Richie Stanaway (Status Grand Prix) and Marciello in lap 25. A second virtual safety car was deployed for one lap caused by debris in the swimming pool area before Canamasas put himself in front of Pic with a strong and clean overtake in Turn 1 of lap 28. In lap 33 Leal officially received a 10 seconds time penalty following an unsafe release causing a contact with Sirotkin in pit lane. With these seconds added up to his final time when crossing the finish line, he got classified 6th instead 3rd. The Top 10 of Race 1 were Vandoorne, who up until now won every Feature Race of this season and extended his championship lead to 111 points over championship and today’s second Alexander Rossi with 69 points. Sergio Canamasas made his first podium finish since his second place in Monaco’s Sprint Race of 2014, moving up to P3 after Leal’s penalty. Arthur Pic and Sergey Sirotkin got classified 4th and 5th, Raffaele Marciello will start from reverse pole finishing the race 8th and the rookies Jordan King and Nick Yelloly complete the first 10 drivers.