Norman Nato has taken his first win of GP2 and the first win of the 2016 season at the Circuit de Catalunya.
A chaotic race has given one of the most surprising victories in GP2 history. The win had looked to be Pierre Gasly’s as he managed to retain the lead from the start comfortably, but the Frenchman ended up dropping back to finish on the bottom step of the podium behind Nicolas Latifi.
From the start, the win had looked to be Gasly’s. He had an impressive start to hold off the chasing pack even after he got a bit of wheel spin off the start. The first few corners were relatively clean even though Oliver Rowland took the run off through Turn 1. Sergey Sirotkin had an incredible start from fourth putting pressure on the two DAMS cars on the run down to Turn 1. He managed to demote Alex Lynn down to fourth with an excellent move up the inside. Lynn was then pushed further down the order as teammate Latifi took fourth off him, leaving him defending in fifth.
However, the start was not a good one for Luca Ghiotto. In the first race of his GP2 career, he sadly did not make it further than the second corner: Contact from behind from Nabil Jeffri caused the 2015 GP3 runner-up to get a rear puncture that sent him straight into the gravel. The car careered into the tyre barrier and brought out the first of two safety car periods to clean up the debris.
Gasly controlled the restart perfectly and made sure his lead was built and not under threat as the cars raced back into Turn 1. Jordan King felt that Sergio Canamasas had overtaken him during the virtual safety car period and was angered when no further action was taken on this incident. His anger might have affected his racing on the restart as a big lock-up into Turn 1 opened the door wide open for Nobuharu Matsushita to take a position off him.
Sergey Sirotkin was making fast advances on then second-placed Nato and was looking to demote the Frenchman down to the bottom step of the podium, but a driver mistake into Turn 2 after having used DRS to close up the gap saw the Russian spinning the car and stalling it in the middle of the track. This ended the Russian’s race and made him the second retiree. Leaders Gasly, Nato and Latifi dove into the pits to beat the safety car out so they could retain their positions through the removal of Sirotkin’s car.
Gasly struggled to turn the new softer compound of tyre on and did not make it difficult for Nato to get passed him for the lead. Nato made the move up the inside of Turn 10 to have Gasly having to slow down significantly and let Nato through to save on a collision. Gasly’s woes continued as Latifi used the Frenchman’s issues to take second from the Prema driver.
Artem Markelov also knew he had to optimise the softer compound of tyre and try and gain as many positions as possible before they went off. He made up two positions on the first lap getting up to fifth where he then got stuck behind Canamasas for a few laps. Eventually, he and Lynn managed to demote the Spaniard as his tyres went off, taking fourth and fifth respectively.
The end of the race did not go so well for Markelov’s teammate Raffeele Marciello. Antonio Giovinazzi made no attempt to make a clean move on the Italian and ploughed into the back of him, taking him out of the race and leaving him beached in the gravel. It was a real disappointment for Marciello as he was in position for reverse pole for tomorrow’s sprint race. The safety car that then brought out the chequered flag due to this incident really helped out Gasly as he was struggling very badly on his tyres and would have probably lost the last step of the podium to Markelov had the race continued to run to full time.
