Matsushita takes sprint race victory in Monaco
Nobuharu Matsushita took a dominant win during the Sprint Race in Monaco to make it four different winners in the first four races of the season.
He started on reverse pole and retained the lead from the start, finishing with a 12 second lead over second placed Marvin Kirchhöfer. Raffaele Marciello, who took the second podium for Russian Time this weekend, finished off the podium.
The reverse grid remained the same from the start of the race as a clean start led to no first lap incidents.
Mitch Evans finished fourth to add more points to his campaign from yesterday. Alex Lynn, Norman Nato, Oliver Rowland and Artem Markelov finished off the points scoring positions. It was close at the end for Lynn as an issue that had appeared to be impending his entire race saw him slip back into close contention with Nato. The Frenchman looked keen to take fifth place from Lynn after feeling he had been cheated of the top step in yesterday’s feature race. But it was too late for Nato to be able to optimise the situation.
Nato had been in a close fight with Rowland and Markelov behind for sixth place. The three had a tight battle for the last few points positions for the entire race with Markelov looking to demote Rowland a few times. But none of these chances came to light as the top eight finished the race as they started.
It was Sergio Canamasas for Carlin who optimised the limited overtaking opportunities around Monte Carlo. Whilst his teammate took second, he finished tenth after passing Pierre Gasly, Gustav Malja and Daniël De Jong with an amazing move up the inside of La Rascasse. He overtook the three over a series of laps with a magnificent repeat of the same move, taking an early apex through La Rascasse to get the inside line and track position on the exit.
Four drivers retired from the race today, with only one of those incidents bringing out the Virtual Safety Car. Philo Paz Armand was the first driver to take an early exit from the race as Jordan King tried to overtake through the Lowes Hairpin. King made the move on the inside but pushed Armand out to the edge of the track where he went into the barrier. The Briton was given a ten-second penalty for causing the collision.
Sean Gelael was the driver to bring out the Virtual Safety Car as he got some over steer through the first corner and put it into the barrier at Sainte Devote. The Campos driver apologised to the team for the incident that saw him make his early exit.
It was another dreadful race this weekend for Sergey Sirotkin as a mechanical issue saw him retire from the race. After putting his car on pole position on Thursday the Russian has had a poor two races at Monaco. Both have ended in retirement with yesterday’s race seeing the Russian making a mistake and hitting the wall in the Swimming Pool complex whilst today an unknown issue saw his car slowing to a halt at the side of the circuit. Nabil Jeffri was the final retirement as he brought his car back into the pits with an unknown issue.
Nato leads the Drivers’ Championship after two rounds but the variety of winners in the season already indicates the 2016 season should be and intense season of unpredictability.
The GP2 grid returns to racing in a few weeks time for the first ever race out at the Baku street circuit. If the conditions are similar to Monaco this could play into the hands of teams who have a power deficit, so teams who have done well in Monaco could be predicted to do well in Baku as well.