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Saturday, 28 April 2012 09:11 |
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Page 1 of 2  GP2 Series report and result of the race in Bahrain - Victory never tasted so good for Rapax rookie Tom Dillmann when the Frenchman took a lights to flags win in today’s Sprint Race after having to hold off a charging Luiz Razia in the final laps to take the chequered flag 0.1s ahead of the Arden man and pocket his maiden series win.
When the lights went off, pole sitter Dillmann had to defend his position at Turn 1 to keep the lead ahead of Marcus Ericsson while further down the pack, Esteban Gutierrez and Felipe Nasr took a blazing start.
The Mexican Sauber F1 test driver entered Turn 1 from the inside and had a very slight coming together with Giedo van der Garde which was examined by the race stewards, but returned a no penalty verdict later in the race.
After spinning from the contact, the Dutchman was able to rejoin safely, but by then Razia had made his way to P3 from fifth on the grid.
At the front, Dillmann started to pull away from Ericsson who was himself busy with trying to keep Razia at bay, the Brazilian ultimately proved to be too strong a rival for the Swede on this occasion and overtook him to take P2.
A lap later, the iSport man’s race went from bad to worse when Rio Haryanto passed him for P3.
Series leader Davide Valsecchi was next on the list of Ericsson’s torturers, but their battle was interrupted when Gutierrez attacked Valsecchi to go past him into Turn 1.
Dillmann was 4.2s ahead of Razia by then leaving Gutierrez to continue to slice through the field when he overtook Ericsson and then targeted Haryanto with the Indonesian defending his position well, but having to surrender a lap later.
Behind this pair, Valsecchi passed Ericsson who later was also overtaken by Nasr.
When Valsecchi started to put pressure on him, Haryanto could not resist for too long leaving the Italian to close in on Mexican Gutierrez for P3, and after the first two overtaking attempts did not work, the third one stuck and Valsecchi was back on the podium.
Meanwhile, the race leader had managed to build up a gap of 5.5s to Razia, but the Brazilian started to pick up the pace and what was a comfortable cushion between the two men slowly but surely disappeared.
Dillmann lost four seconds over two laps and with three laps to go, Razia had reduced the gap to 0.9s.
The Arden racer started to try and find a way past the Rapax rookie who defended his position to the best of his ability on tyres that were clearly struggling to find good traction out of corners.
Razia came even closer and attacked the Frenchman from all parts, but he made a small mistake on a curb which gave Dillmann a tiny room to breathe.
On the final lap, Razia was back in Dillmann’s mirrors and pushed hard to find a way past, but the Frenchman made no mistakes and crossed the finish line with the smallest of margins.
Behind the leading duo, Valsecchi took another podium finish in third ahead of Gutierrez. In the final corners, Nasr took P5 from Haryanto.
Ericsson and Fabio Leimer pocketed the final points. Valsecchi is now more than ever the clear leader of the Series with 107 points after a fabulous Bahraini campaign, 24 points in front of Razia. Gutierrez is third with 54 points, nine ahead of Max Chilton and Leimer lies in fifth place with 41 points.
The fourth round of the 2012 GP2 Series season will take place in Barcelona, Spain in two weeks alongside the Formula One Grand Prix.
2012 Bahrain Standalone - Sprint Race results:
| Pos. |
Driver |
Team |
| 1. |
Tom Dillmann |
Rapax |
| 2. |
Luiz Razia |
Arden International |
| 3. |
Davide Valsecchi |
DAMS |
| 4. |
Esteban Gutierrez |
Lotus GP |
| 5. |
Felipe Nasr |
DAMS |
| 6. |
Rio Haryanto |
Carlin |
| 7. |
Marcus Ericsson |
iSport International |
| 8. |
Fabio Leimer |
Racing Engineering |
| 9. |
Fabio Onidi |
Scuderia Coloni |
| 10. |
Nathanael Berthon |
Racing Engineering |
| 11. |
Nigel Melker Ocean |
Racing Technology |
| 12. |
James Calado |
Lotus GP |
| 13. |
Max Chilton |
Carlin |
| 14. |
Julian Leal |
Trident Racing |
| 15. |
Rodolfo Gonzalez |
Caterham Racing |
| 16. |
Brendon Hartley |
Ocean Racing Technology |
| 17. |
Stephane Richelmi |
Trident Racing |
| 18. |
Stefano Coletti |
Scuderia Coloni |
| 19. |
Giedo van der Garde |
Caterham Racing |
| 20. |
Ricardo Teixeira |
Rapax |
| 21. |
Giancarlo Serenelli |
Venezuela GP Lazarus |
| 22. |
Jolyon Palmer |
iSport International |
| 23. |
Fabrizio Crestani |
Venezuela GP Lazarus |
| 24. |
Simon Trummer |
Arden International |
| NC. |
Dani Clos |
Barwa Addax Team |
| NC. |
Johnny Cecotto |
Barwa Addax Team |
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