Sirotkin breaks Vandoorne's run for Feature Race wins crossing the finish line first in Silverst
- Jul 4, 2015
- 3 min read
Sergey Sirotkin sees the chequered flag first on this Saturday afternoon, winning his maiden GP2 Race ahead of Alexander Rossi and Stoffel Vandoorne on second and third position. For Vandoorne this result marked the first Feature Race he did not win in the whole 2015’s season.
The 5th Round of the GP2 Season 2015 came up with some changes in the teams’ line-ups. Johnny Cecotto rejoined the grid, taking Marco Sørensen’s seat at Carlin. MP Motorsport brought in rookie Oliver Rowland, who currently leads the Formula Renault 3.5 Series championship competing with Fortec Motorsport. Jon Lancaster came back to Hilmer Motorsport and the GP2 Series. Last but not least Daiko Team Lazarus brought in Sergio Canamasas alongside Nathanaël Berthon.
In a sunny qualifying on Friday, Sergey Sirotkin (Rapax) claimed his maiden pole position, while championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne (ART Grand Prix) qualified himself second. Richie Stanaway (Status Grand Prix), Alexander Rossi (Racing Engineering), Arthur Pic (Campos Racing) and Pierre Gasly (DAMS) completed the first three rows of the starting grid. In only his second GP2 session ever, Oliver Rowland managed to qualify within the top ten, starting the first race of the weekend from P9.
An amazing start made Stanaway jump up to the lead immediately after the lights went off. Nobuharu Matsushita (ART Grand Prix) gained many positions at the start coming up to P3 behind Sirotkin, also catching his teammate Vandoorne among others. Within the first lap Artem Markelov (Russian Time) collided with Berthon (Lazarus). As a consequence of the crash the safety car was deployed and the Russian got penalised with a 10 second penalty, which in the end was just the first of two penalties in total Markelov received over the race. He crossed the finish line last.
Directly at the restart in lap 4 Sirotkin and Matsushita caught Stanaway while Sirotkin managed to pull off quickly, starting to set fastest laps of the race. Three laps later Matsushita had to retire from the race due to a mechanical failure, just when the pit window opened and Jordan King (Racing Engineering) and Nick Yelloly (Hilmer Motorsport) where the first drivers to come in for their mandatory pit stop.
Once again, Mitch Evans (Russian Time) had to face a guilt-free retirement when in lap 10 his headrest flew off on the Hangar straight. King meanwhile placed himself as the first of the stoppers on P16, when Vandoorne currently defending his third place from Rossi was told to expect his pit stop in eight laps. Despite the Belgian’s strong defending, Rossi caught him in lap 16 and continued his run overtaking Stanaway for P2 just one lap later. Struggling on his tyres, Stanaway lost P3 to Vandoorne before both drivers simultaneously came to the pits for fresh rubber in lap 18. The championship leader was able to hold his third position. With an unfortunate suspension issue, Stanaway had to reenter the pits and retire from the race.
Gradually all drivers still running on their first set of tyres made their mandatory stops before in lap 22 the pit window closed. At that point Sirotkin already got back to the lead with a gap of 5.8 seconds ahead of Rossi. Another 3.5 seconds behind, King had to defend his third position from Vandoorne within DRS range closely followed by Yelloly and Gasly.
With 4 laps to go, Vandoorne passed King for the final podium position. The Briton began to struggle on his 18-laps-old tyres, defending his position amazingly while leading a train consisting of Gasly, Alex Lynn (DAMS), Yelloly and Pic. Yelloly on the same strategy like King got passed by Pic, before both DAMS drivers overtook King in lap 29. Then, in the very last corner, a contact between the Briton and Pic fighting for P6 made King spun out of the race. This incident got investigated after the race.
On the top of the field, Sirotkin brought home his maiden GP2 win masterfully 5.9 seconds ahead of Rossi and 13.5 seconds ahead of Vandoorne.
Gasly, his teammate Lynn, Pic, Raffaele Marciello (Trident), Yelloly - provisionally on reverse grid pole for tomorrow’s Sprint Race -, Rowland and Rio Haryanto (Campos Racing) complete the top 10.
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