Monday, October 20, 2008

Valsecchi wins race two at Shanghai

Durango's Davide Valsecchi opened his GP2 Asia account with a win in the second race at Shanghai, although constant pressure from Earl Bamber meant that the result did not come easily.

Valsecchi started from pole with Bamber alongside, and within just a few laps the pair had opened enough of a gap to remove everyone else from the equation.

But Bamber was a formidable enough threat on his own, to the point where he was actually quicker during the middle stint of the race, before Valsecchi got a second wind and created a two-second buffer that he held until the end.

Javier Villa was third after passing Chris van der Drift on the back straight midway through the race, although the Spaniard had a scare in the closing laps when he overcooked it going into a corner and ran off the track.

Fortunately for him, he had been pulling away from van der Drift at more than a second per lap and had enough of a gap to rejoin without losing a position.

Van der Drift held off a long train of cars to finish fourth ahead of Jerome D'Ambrosio and Roldan Rodriguez, the latter emerging from the weekend as the series leader courtesy of his win in the first race. Kamui Kobayashi retained second in the points despite retiring from race two with damage.

Pos Driver Team Time 1. Davide Valsecchi Durango 41:44.065 2. Earl Bamber Qi-Meritus + 4.809 3. Javier Villa Super Nova + 10.189 4. Chris van der Drift Trident + 17.700 5. Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS + 18.383 6. Roldan Rodriguez Piquet + 18.810 7. Sergio Perez Barwa Campos + 19.356 8. Hiroki Yoshimoto BCN + 31.563 9. Alex Yoong Qi-Meritus + 32.982 10. Mika Maki Arden + 33.587 11. James Jakes Super Nova + 34.608 12. Yuhi Sekiguchi DPR + 38.078 13. Nelson Philippe ART + 40.428 14. Sakon Yamamoto ART +1:05.498 15. Kevin Nai Chia Chen FMS +1:39.742 16. Michael Herck DPR + 1 lap 17. Luiz Razia Arden + 2 laps Not classified:Driver Team Laps Vitaly Petrov Barwa Campos 19 Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 16 Hamad Al Fardan iSport 11 Luca Filippi BCN 10 Carlos Iaconelli Durango 1 Giacomo Ricci Trident 1 Diego Nunes Piquet 0 Andreas Zuber FMS 0

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