History was made in GP2 this weekend, as the sport followed it’s father known as Formula One in hosting the series first ever night race in Qatar for the fourth round of the season.
Kamui Kobayashi extended his championship lead to ten points after the third round, the DAMS driver had thirty-four points and leads Davide Valsecchi of Durango with twenty-four, just two behind with twenty-two was Roldan Rodriquez for Piquet Sports despite not scoring during this Bahraini weekend.
For the Qatar round there is a number of new drivers, former Super Nova driver Alvaro Parente returns to the series replacing New Zealander Earl Bamber at Qi-Meritus.Mahara, while Davide Rigon who shot to fame over the summer by wining the first ever Super League Formula Championship makes his GP2 debut replacing Adrian Valles at Trident.
Vitaly Petrov of Campos was the first to get used to the night racing conditions as he set the fastest time in opening practise. He was the only man to get into the 1:38s he time was 1:38.812 and was two tenths of a second faster than Marco Bonanomi of Qi-Meritus.Mahara. Valsecchi was third ahead of the surprising Michael Herck who got his DPR in to fourth place.
Petrov kept his good pace going into qualifying but was forced to settle for third on the grid as Nico Hulkenberg of ART and Campos team-mate Sergio Perez both found extra speed to be able to pass him and take the two front row positions. The championship leader will be in the mix again during the race as Kobayashi qualified in fourth place.
On Friday it was Williams Formula One test driver, Hulkenberg who made history by wining the first ever GP2 night race. He erased his Bahraini disappointment of fading from pole to win from the same position.
The race started in dramatic fashion, when Hulkenberg’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Sakon Yamamoto stalled for the second race running and was collected at high speed by the Ocean Racing Technology entry driven by Yelmer Buurman.
When the race restarted Campos driver Sergio Perez and Super Novas Javier Villa both passed Hulkenberg, however with more GP2 experience he saved his tyres, unlike he did in Bahrain and his plan worked when driver started making their pit stops.
Hulkenberg stayed out much longer than his rivals before his pit stop, meaning that his new tyres would have to go less distance and maintain grip and speed in the closing stages when others would lose theirs.
When he emerged he was ten seconds ahead of Petrov in second and Perez in third. The two Campos cars would swap positions soon after.
Championship leader Kobayashi had a very quiet race finishing fourth, Jerome D'Ambrosio finished fifth just behind his team-mate and ahead of his championship rival Valsecchi in sixth. Edoardo Mortara and Luiz Razia finished seventh and eighth both drivers for Arden International, to ensure that Christian Horner’s team locked out the front row on Saturday night.
After his fast start that put him into second place early on, Javier Villa received a drive through penalty and eventually finished the race down in thirteenth place.
Sergio Perez is taking to GP2 like a duck to water, as he proved by taking victory from seventh on the grid in the Saturday night sprint race.
He and team-mate Petrov, starting sixth, both made unbelievable starts taking first and second into the first corner, with Petrov still ahead at his point.
It was the start of lap two when, for the second time this weekend, he was able to pass his more experienced team-mate and take the lead that he would never lose to lead home a Campos 1-2.
Hulkenberg finished third but he spent most of the race stuck behind his old Formula Three Euroseries rival from last year, Eduardo Mortara, who after starting from second on the grid was struggling not to drop backwards.
Hulkenberg finally got past after fifteen laps but the Campos drivers were already ten seconds ahead of him, and he was forced to settle for third place.
Mortara was able to hold on to fourth place after Valsecchi, who was fifth, spent most of the race stuck behind Razia, and like Hulkenberg once he has passed it was too late for him to do anything about the cars ahead and he was forced to settle for fifth, with Razia again taking the final point for sixth.
Kobayashi had a nightmare race and finished down in eighteenth place.
After a disappointing weekend Kobayashi has seen his championship lead cut to ten points by Valsecchi and now leads by thirty-nine points to twenty-nine points. Hulkenberg is already in third place in the championship after his pair if third places, despite only racing half of the season so far, with twenty-four points with sprint race winner Perez in fourth with twenty-four
Written: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:27:45
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