It is a weekend of debuts for Sergey Sirotkin: The Russian drove on the Silverstone circuit for the first time, claimed his maiden pole position in yesterday’s qualifying session, and now he has taken his first GP2 victory as well in a thrilling race full of action. Championship rivals Alexander Rossi and Stoffel Vandoorne complete the podium after a race-long battle.
At first Sirotkin seemed to be in trouble, losing the lead at the race start to Richie Stanaway who dashed up to the front from P3, while Stoffel Vandoorne, having started from second place, lost two positions getting overtaken by Stanaway and his team mate Nobuharu Matsushita. Alexander Rossi ended up right behind the championship leader and began to put pressure on his immediately.
However, the race was interrupted soon after the start, as there was contact between Artem Markelov and Nathanael Berthon. Markelov was able to limp back to the pits, but Berthon’s Lazarus car was stranded on the track so that the safety car made an appearance and put an end to all battles. At the restart in lap three, Stanaway was napping and allowed Sirotkin and Matsushita to slip through.
While Sirotkin pulled away unchallenged at the front, Matsushita had to stop his car a few laps after the restart due to mechanical problems. Meanwhile, battles shaped up behind the leading duo of Sirotkin and Stanaway: Vandoorne came under pressure from Rossi again as soon as the safety car phase was over, and Pierre Gasly and Arthur Pic began a hard fight for fifth place as well. In lap ten Rossi was finally able to move past Vandoorne, and overtook Stanaway as well one lap later to start hunting down Sirotkin in the race lead. The battle between Gasly and Pic was still raging, and now Raffaele Marciello and Alex Lynn had caught up tot he squabbling pair as well.
In lap 18 the first ones of the leading group made their pit stops: Vandoorne and Stanaway came into the pits to switch on the softer medium compound and came out behind Jordan King and Nick Yelloly who had been on an alternate strategy and had stopped as soon as the window had opened. Rossi pitted one lap later: However, the American emerged ahead of Jordan and Yelloly, putting even more pressure on Vandoorne to move forward. Sirotkin stopped in the following lap and emerged without problems, still leading the drivers who had already made their stops.
The battling pair of Gasly and Pic were among the last ones to make their stop. Gasly was fast enough to re-enter the track right in front of Vandoorne, however, the young Frenchman was disadvantaged by his cold tyres and Vandoorne made short work of him after a few corners. Pic pitted one lap later, however, he emerged behind Gasly and with two drivers in between them. Nevertheless, Gasly could not catch a break: team mate Alex Lynn put the Frenchman under heavy pressure, but despite fighting wheel to wheel the Frenchman held onto his position until the checkered flag.
In the last stage of the race, King and Yelloly soon began to struggle on their old tyres. Vandoorne was able to dash past both of them easily to chase after Rossi, who had been promoted to P2 after Stanaway had retired from the race with a damaged suspension. Gasly and Lynn moved past the two Brits as well. Yelloly dropped even further back behind Pic, however, King was able to defend himself against the Frenchman until the pair made contact in the last lap: King was tapped into a pin and his race was over.
Meanwhile at the front, Sergey Sirotkin crossed the finish line with a lead of almost six seconds ahead of second-placed Alexander Rossi to claim his maiden GP2 race win as well as the fastest lap of the race. Vandoorne saw the checkered flag in third place ahead of Gasly, Lynn, and Pic, however, the Frenchman’s last lap collision is under investigation. Raffaele Marciello finished in seventh place ahead of Nick Yelloly, and rookie Oliver Rowland and Rio Haryanto round out the top ten.
All images courtesy of GP2 Media Services
