Vandoorne Adds Sixth Win to 2015 Campaign as ART Take The Constructor's Title

Stoffel Vandoorne lead ART to a one-two finish for the GP2 Feature race in Bahrain. Nobuharu Matsushita made an impressive charge from starting eighth to join his teammate on the podium. It’s the second one-two of the season for ART, the last coming in the Sprint race in Hungary where Matsushita lead Vandoorne to claim his first ever GP2 win. The result led ART to their second Constructor’s Title of the day as only a few hours earlier the GP3 outlet of the team had managed to secure their own Constructor’s Title. Mitch Evans completed the podium, coming from seventh. Richie Stanaway has opted out of competing in round ten of the GP2 Championship as his sole focus this weekend will be the final of the World Endurance Championship.

In the same style as he has had all season Vandoorne stormed into the lead going into turn one, depositing pole-sitter Pierre Gasly from the lead before the race and really begun. With a five second lead as he took his mandatory pit stop, the Belgium driver came out ahead of early stopper Nathanael Berthon and managed to pull his lead out to a staggering thirteen seconds by the end of the race, using the traffic behind him to keep back the potential attack of those chasing in behind him.

Evans was looking at a strong second place finish, and at a track he expected to not perform well at he would have been ecstatic with the result. However, he was a sitting duck to Matsushita’s advances in the closing stages of the race as he nursed a slow puncture caused by Alex Rossi driving into the back on him as he tried to make the pass. Rossi’s race was ruined by the contact as it shattered his front wing, forcing him to take an extra pit stop and rejoin at the back of the grid down in 18th. To finish on the podium with mentor Mark Webber in attendance this weekend, as Webber will race in the Six Hours of Bahrain, is a great boost for the young Kiwi who had a less that desired start to the season.

Pierre Gasly had a less than desired race as his pole position lasted about fifty yards. After being demoted to second early by Vandoorne the Frenchman found himself slipping back down the order, eventually finishing P6. He starts tomorrow's sprint race P4 but he will be rueing his wasted oppotunity with pole in today's race as he still tried to get his first 2015 victory.

With the reverse grid Alex Lynn will be starting on pole for tomorrow’s sprint race, with Vandoorne down in eighth. Last time out at Bahrain Vandoorne finished first in the Feature race and then second in the Sprint, so he will be looking to hopefully improve on that result and score the illusive double win that he has been so close to all season. But with Evans’ great performance to get to the podium, can he have a repeat performance of Monza where he took the win in the Sprint race from seventh on the grid? All will be answered tomorrow at 7:40 GMT when GP2 returns for the final race of round ten.

(Image: www.gp2series.com)

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