ESPNF1 Staff
July 23, 2011
Luca Filippi took victory on his 100th GP2 start © Sutton Images
Luca Filippi won the GP2 feature race at the Nurburgring in his first race for Scuderia Coloni after jumping pole-sitter Charles Pic in the pit stops.
Pic had led away but lost out when Filippi stayed out longer in his opening stint. The Barwa man was able to hold off Romain Grosjean to seal second, however. The front three were almost half a minute ahead of Jules Bianchi in fourth, followed by Marcus Ericsson, Gierdo van der Garde, Dani Clos and Sam Bird.
Pic got away well at the start with Filippi slotting in behind, but it was a less smooth getaway for Grosjean who lost out to Bianchi off the line. The field got away cleanly through turn one, but there was contact when Paul Verhaug hit the back of Kevin Mirocha in turn four, forcing both drivers to retire from the race and bringing out the safety car for a couple of laps.
At the restart, Grosjean had to resist pressure from van der Garde, while behind them Alvaro Parente passed Clos for 7th. The race hinged on the pit stops though, when Bianchi was delayed and came out well behind Grosjean, and then Filippi rejoined ahead of Pic having pitted later. Initially he came under pressure from both Pic and Grosjean, but kept a cool head to ease away and win by over 5 seconds.
From then on the main action was from Parente backwards, where a train had formed all scrapping for the leading places on the reverse grid. Bird passed Clos for eighth in to turn one, but then lost the position later in the lap. Fortunately for the iSport man, Parente was handed a drive-through penalty for not respecting the track limits, promoting Clos to seventh and Bird to pole position for tomorrow's sprint race.
The action continued until the final laps, as Fabio Leimer tapped Adam Carroll off the track at turn five, and then had contact with Luis Razia which forced the Caterham man to retire. On the penultimate lap, Ericsson dispatched a struggling van der Garde under braking for the chicane for fifth place, but ran out of time to close down Bianchi.
Credit: ESPN F1 (en.espnf1.com)
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