GP2
Italian driver's victory now gives him a 25-point advantage in the championship
Davide Valsecchi became the second Italian victor at Monza in as many days after winning Sunday’s GP2 sprint race.
The DAMS driver got off the line brilliantly and darted through the middle of polesitter Stefano Coletti and second-placed Jolyon Palmer to lead going into Turn 1.
Fabio Leimer followed through the same gap and moved into second. The Swiss would remain behind Valsecchi for the remaining 21 laps, always close enough to keep the Italian honest but never really threatening to steal the local man’s thunder. Palmer, some seven seconds adrift of the charging front pair when the flag came down, was happy to keep out of trouble and claim third.
On lap two, Coloni’s Fabio Onidi badly misjudged his braking point for Turn 1, slewing to the right as his tyres locked up and smashing into Nigel Melker’s Ocean as the Dutchman was serenely turning into the corner. Both drivers were out of the race but both escaped injury.
It was an eventful race for Marcus Ericsson. The Swede got away well from the line but undid all his hard work by outbraking himself and running through the first chicane, leaving him to spend the rest of the race tussling with Coletti.
The outcome of the pair’s scrap was eventually decided on the last lap, with Ericsson running wide through Ascari trying to pass the Monegasque driver and falling to seventh place, while Coletti held on to fourth.
Saturday’s surprise feature race winner Luca Filippi couldn’t have had a more markedly different sprint race. The Italian collided on the opening lap with Lotus’ Esteban Gutiérrez, leaving him with front wing damage. After coming in for a new wing on lap six, Filippi found himself scrapping it out with the backmarkers, almost a full lap down from the leaders. Well, at least Saturday was good…
Rounding off his dismal weekend, Arden’s Luiz Razia managed to finish 16th, after starting in P25 following his five-place grid drop from the feature race the day before.
The Brazilian, who had been leading the championship when he arrived in Italy, must have felt a little queasy as he watched Valsecchi help himself to a trophy, a bottle of champagne and a 25-point lead in the championship going into the final race in Singapore in two weeks’ time.