UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Bahrain GP2: Fillipi and Lapierre win

Feeder series kicks off

The Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir hosted the opening round of the 2007 GP2 series, making it the only event this season to e held outside Europe. Going into the first event the title favourites are the double championship winning ART team and 2006 rivals Minardi Piquet Sports, who both field new challengers following promotions to F1. Another of the pre-season favourites is iSport who have topped recent tests.

The format for a GP2 weekend is, on Friday there is a practise session followed by qualifying. Saturday, just after F1 qualifying is concluded the feature race takes place with a shorter sprint race before the Grand Prix on Sunday morning. The only time this is different is in Monaco where due to time restraints there is no sprint race on Sunday.

In the practise session former Jordan race Timo Glock topped the times confirming the impressive test pace iSport have shown. Unexpectedly it was Luca Fillipi who was in second spot for Super Nova, who was expected to be competing in the midfield during the season. Third place went to Alexandre Negrao for Minardi Piquet Sports, who needs consistent results if he is going to fill the void left by 2006 runner up Nelson Piquet Junior. Double Champions ART were also on the pace early with Lucas di Grassi setting the fifth fastest time and Michael Ammermuller the seventh fastest.

In qualifying Fillipi showed that his practise pace wasn’t so much of a shock after all by putting the Super Nova on pole. Second on the grid is Negrao after a late run to move up the order ahead of pre championship favourite Andi Zuber who is third. Di Grassi is fourth on the grid with team-mate Ammermuller struggling down in fifteenth. The highest placed newcomer is Bruno Senna who will line up fifth for Arden.
Saturdays feature race was dominantly won by Fillipi in a GP2 rarity, a lights to flag victory.

After an aborted start due to no less than five cars stalling on the grid, including the experienced Antonio Pizzonia driving for FMS and Giorgio Pantano driving for Campos, he had a slow get away at the start and immediately came under threat from the two iSport cars but was able to hold his advantage from Zuber and Timo Glock who had the sort of start were getting used to see Lewis Hamilton do, moving from seventh on the grid up to third by the first corner and then take second at the second corner after a collision with Negrao.

Glock took the place and resumed with no ill-affects however Negrao dropped to tenth and received a badly bent steering column that would hinder him until he later retired from the race.

This left Fillipi already opening out an advantage that he would never lose. Behind him was the train Glock, Zuber, Senna, di Grassi and Nicolas Lapierre driving for DAMS. Lapierre would soon be out of the running for a top result as he made a mistake which allowed Adrian Zaugg of Arden, Borja Garcia in a Durango, Ammermuller, and Negrao to pass.

Back at the front Glock was setting consistently beating the fastest lap of the race in a fruitless attempt to catch Fillipi but he was able to match the Germans pace and extended his lead to over four seconds. Further back Negrao was the only man able to run with the leaders pace but he was way down the order until his pit stop on lap seven helped him to jump Lapierre, Garcia and Ammermuller.
After Glock and Fillippi had made their stops they traded fastest laps until the end of the race with Glock unable to get any closer to the leader.

Negrao’s fight back up the order ended in the barriers on lap fifteen. With Negrao gone Di Grassi was the man on a charge passing Lapierre and Zaugg in the closing stages as Zaugg had a problem and a train began to form behind the ailing Arden car.

Filippi eventually won by 8.1 seconds after Glock backed off in the closing stages to protect his second place ahead of teammate Zuber in third. Off the podium Senna was fourth on his debut just ahead of Di Grassi in fifth, Zaugg held on for sixth with Lapierre in seventh and Garcia in eighth to take the final point and pole position when the top eight are reversed for the sprint race.

The fastest lap eventually went to DAMS driver Kazuki Nakajima, another one of the stallers at the start; with nothing to lose he took fresh tires in the closing stages and set a time of 1:43.226 on lap 27.

An interesting GP2 fact is that in the previous two years the person who has finished second in the first race has gone on to win the championship and the person who has won the first race has gone on to finish second in the championship and be signed as a Renault F1 test driver.

In Sundays sprint race it was Lapierre one of the most experienced men in GP2 history who finally won his first race.

He took the advantage at the start taking the lead from pole man Garcia who followed through into second place. Behind the pair there was mayhem. Zuber had made a good start and was looking to gain positions at the first corner but as he tried to get passed di Grassi the pair collided and also damaged Senna’s who has nowhere to go.

The safety car made its first appearance of the season as marshals cleaned up the mess while Senna limped back to the pits for repairs. Filippi, Andy Soucek for DPR, Pantano, and Fillippi’s teammate Mike Conway had make the most of the accident by jumping from the back right up to the front of the order with Conway way and Pantano running sixth and eighth after starting twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth on the grid.

While the safety car was out Pizzonia pulled of the track and into retirement with a technical problem. Two laps later the safety car pulled back into the pits and the race resumed. It was back out again at the end of that same lap as Nakajima collected Ho-Pin Tung, pushing the Chinese driver into the wall. A further two laps later the race re-resumed. With Fillippi passing Garcia and Glock passing Soucek into turn one.

Zaugg was having a difficult day, caught up in the first corner incident the South Africans side pod had begun lifting off the chassis and another collision with Durango driver Karun Chandhok there was nothing he could do but limp back to the pits and hope the rolling repairs would hold.

Along way down the order the two Trident drivers had a coming together. Kohei Hirate was clearly the faster of the pair but as he tried to overtake his teammate the Venezuelan pushed him off the track causing Hirate to retire.

Conway who was running well in the points was now under extreme pressure from Pantano but the Italian suddenly slowed and retired with a mechanical problems.

Lapierre won the race from and was joined on the podium by Glock and Fillippi. Completing the points was Garcia, Conway and Nakajima who passed Ammermuller late in the race. Glock set the races fastest lap with a time of1:44.172

After the opening two races Fillippi leads the standings with 16 points, two ahead of Glock who has 14 and Lapierre is third with eight.

Written: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:52:31