General Motorsport Thread

Adam · May 26, 2012

Last place, what a terrific show by him!

Barrichello is 10th. Be great to see him get a high finish.

Lineker · May 27, 2012

GP2 bosses have announced new tyre regulations for this weekend's race in Monaco, the fifth round of the 2012 season.

The tyre allocation has been tweaked for the Monte Carlo event, where drivers will have two sets of each tyre compound.

Previously, drivers had three sets of the harder compound and one set of softs for the weekend.

Also for the Monaco weekend, the series' bosses have decided to scrap the rule saying drivers had to save a set of the harder tyres for the sprint race.

Pirelli is hoping the new rules will generate a greater variety of strategies during the races.

"The new tyre rules for GP2 are an exciting development that will introduce a bigger element of tyre strategy and management to the race weekend, making the GP2 Series even better preparation for the very pinnacle of racing," said Pirelli's racing manager Mario Isola.

"With two sets of the softer compound available to them at any point in Monaco, the GP2 drivers will need to think really carefully about when to use them, but they will end up with more experience of running on a faster compound, which needs to be wisely managed."

A last-gasp flying lap from Johnny Cecotto on super soft tyres gave the Addax driver first place at the end of GP2 free practice in Monte Carlo.

Cecotto and championship leader Davide Valsecchi jumped to first and second just after yellow flags for an incident involving Cecotto's team-mate Josef Kral were removed.

Although a massive 0.670 seconds separated Cecotto's 1m22.075s benchmark from Valsecchi's second-placed time, the DAMS driver was using soft tyres rather than super softs like his rival.

Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer had looked set to stay on top with his 1m22.750s as the yellow flags flew in the final minute, before swift work by the marshals allowed Cecotto and Valsecchi to stay on the accelerator on their last laps and demote Leimer to third.

Giedo van der Garde had led the way for Caterham for much of the session, but spun and tapped the barriers at Rascasse with four minutes to go, ending his morning. The Dutchman was then pushed back to fourth.

Jolyon Palmer (iSport) and early pacesetter Luiz Razia (Arden) completed the top six, ahead of Coloni's Stefano Coletti, Carlin's Max Chilton (who also held first for a spell), Leimer's team-mate Nathanael Berthon, and Kral.

The latter's incident came when he spun out of the second part of the Swimming Pool and brushed the barriers.

Also in trouble were Lazarus man Giancarlo Serenelli, who spun and stalled at Rascasse, and Lotus's Esteban Gutierrez, who crashed at Sainte Devote before he could set a representative time.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Johnny Cecotto Addax 1m22.075s

2. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m22.745s + 0.670s

3. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m22.750s + 0.675s

4. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m22.757s + 0.682s

5. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m22.842s + 0.767s

6. Luiz Razia Arden 1m23.104s + 1.029s

7. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m23.343s + 1.268s

8. Max Chilton Carlin 1m23.429s + 1.354s

9. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m23.445s + 1.370s

10. Josef Kral Addax 1m23.463s + 1.388s

11. Tom Dillmann Rapax 1m23.626s + 1.551s

12. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m24.009s + 1.934s

13. James Calado Lotus 1m24.062s + 1.987s

14. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m24.125s + 2.050s

15. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m24.154s + 2.079s

16. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m24.160s + 2.085s

17. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m24.268s + 2.193s

18. Julian Leal Trident 1m24.315s + 2.240s

19. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m24.400s + 2.325s

20. Simon Trummer Arden 1m24.629s + 2.554s

21. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m24.868s + 2.793s

22. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m25.748s + 3.673s

23. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 1m25.827s + 3.752s

24. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 1m26.680s + 4.605s

25. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 1m29.407s + 7.332s

26. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m36.944s + 14.869s[/code]

Johnny Cecotto took a shock maiden GP2 pole position in qualifying for the Monaco feature race.

The Addax driver had never previously qualified higher than fifth and is yet to finish on the podium in over two seasons of GP2.

But he proved his fastest time in morning practice was no fluke as he blasted to a 1m21.195s lap at the end of the second part of the split qualifying session.

Carlin's Max Chilton was fastest in the first group and will share the front row with Cecotto.

Caterham driver Giedo van der Garde had looked set to top group one as he dominated much of the session with a series of ever-faster laps. But his eventual 1m21.475s proved insufficient when Chilton came through with a 1m21.320s right at the end.

Chilton appeared secure in pole for a spell as the early group two times were some way off his benchmark. Then iSport's Marcus Ericsson produced a 1m21.249s lap to not only blitz his group two rivals, but depose Chilton from outright pole.

Red flags flew soon afterwards when Rodolfo Gonzalez (Caterham) crashed at the Swimming Pool entrance. There were just over two minutes left on the clocks at the restart, and that proved to be sufficient time for Cecotto to beat Ericsson by 0.149 seconds, pushing the Swede back to third.

Ericsson will share row two with van der Garde, while title contenders Luiz Razia (Arden) and Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) line up fifth and seventh, split by Ericsson's team-mate Jolyon Palmer.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Session

1. Johnny Cecotto Addax 1m21.195s Group 2

2. Max Chilton Carlin 1m21.320s Group 1

3. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m21.249s Group 2

4. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m21.475s Group 1

5. Luiz Razia Arden 1m21.858s Group 2

6. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m21.530s Group 1

7. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m21.912s Group 2

8. Josef Kral Addax 1m21.776s Group 1

9. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m22.053s Group 2

10. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m21.796s Group 1

11. Tom Dillmann Rapax 1m22.288s Group 2

12. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m22.174s Group 1

13. James Calado Lotus 1m22.598s Group 2

14. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m22.326s Group 1

15. Julian Leal Trident 1m22.762s Group 2

16. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m22.475s Group 1

17. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m22.873s Group 2

18. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m22.650s Group 1

19. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m22.996s Group 2

20. Simon Trummer Arden 1m22.997s Group 1

21. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m23.020s Group 2

22. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 1m23.193s Group 1

23. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m23.539s Group 2

24. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m23.792s Group 1

25. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 1m25.907s Group 2

26. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 1m25.661s Group 1

Johnny Cecotto resisted pressure from Marcus Ericsson to take the first win of his GP2 Series career in Monaco. Addax driver Cecotto maintained his pole position at the start, but could never get more than two seconds ahead of Ericsson (iSport), who got particularly close around the pitstops and into the closing laps. Although Ericsson took a few looks at passing as they diced through the traffic, Cecotto had things under control and held on to claim victory by half a second. Giedo van der Garde had a lonely run to third for Caterham. The Dutchman looked like he would have to start at the back as he struggled to get off the dummy grid, but he managed to pull away before the final car passed so could reclaim his position. Championship leader Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) left his pitstop later than most and was able to come through to fourth place from seventh on the grid. Front row starter Max Chilton was passed by Ericsson and van der Garde into the first corner, then lost out to Valsecchi in the pits, but the Carlin driver was able to get away from iSport's Jolyon Palmer and secure fifth, as Palmer took his best GP2 result yet in sixth. An early pitstop and quick laps thereafter allowed Lotus' James Calado to turn 13th on the grid into a seventh-place finish. Calado's team-mate Esteban Gutierrez looked set to claim reverse-grid pole in eighth until he damaged his car on the chicane barriers after launching over the kerbs amid confusion in traffic. Arden's title contender Luiz Razia also had to pit for repairs following the incident. Trident's Stephane Richelmi was elevated to eighth following the incident so will start from pole on Saturday. Nathanael Berthon (Racing Engineering) and Coloni driver Stefano Coletti - who left his mandatory pitstop until four laps from the finish but then lost a few seconds due to being released too soon - completed the top 10.

Feature Race Results - 42 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Johnny Cecotto Addax 59m42.521s

2. Marcus Ericsson iSport + 0.564s

3. Giedo van der Garde Caterham + 5.040s

4. Davide Valsecchi DAMS + 16.347s

5. Max Chilton Carlin + 17.378s

6. Jolyon Palmer iSport + 21.883s

7. James Calado Lotus + 25.685s

8. Stephane Richelmi Trident + 42.275s

9. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering + 45.319s

10. Stefano Coletti Coloni + 47.099s

11. Tom Dillmann Rapax + 51.285s

12. Simon Trummer Arden + 1m04.054s

13. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham + 1m21.395s

14. Rio Haryanto Carlin + 1m23.537s

15. Luiz Razia Arden + 1m23.639s

16. Victor Guerin Ocean + 1 lap

17. Felipe Nasr DAMS + 1 lap

18. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering + 1 lap

19. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus + 1 lap

20. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax + 1 lap

21. Julian Leal Trident + 2 laps

22. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus + 2 laps

Retirements:

Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 37 laps

Nigel Melker Ocean 32 laps

Fabio Onidi Coloni 26 laps

Josef Kral Addax 0 laps[/code]

Jolyon Palmer claimed his first GP2 Series victory with a commanding win in a Monaco sprint race decided by first-lap carnage.

iSport driver Palmer had jumped from third to first by Sainte Devote on the opening lap, and as polesitter Stephane Richelmi gave him space, the Trident car tangled with Lotus's James Calado. A separate incident further back also left Coloni's Stefano Coletti with race-ending damage.

The greatest mayhem came at the top of the hill, as Friday race winner Johnny Cecotto (Addax) spun at Massanet and triggered a multi-car pile-up.

Championship leader Davide Valsecchi, who had lost a lot of ground at the start, was among the victims, while his DAMS team-mate Felipe Nasr was launched over the back of Ocean's Victor Guerin. Rapax duo Tom Dillmann and Ricardo Texeira were also eliminated, as was Coloni's Fabio Onidi and Lazarus man Fabrizio Crestani.

Calado escaped the Richelmi tangle still in second place but with a damaged front wing. When the race got underway again after a safety car period to clean up the lap one mess, Calado initially tried to hang on in second, fending off a queue of cars.

By the time Calado was given a black and orange flag and pitted for repairs, Palmer was nine seconds clear of new second place man Max Chilton, and was able to control the rest of the race.

Carlin driver Chilton started gaining rapidly late on and got the gap down to a second by the chequered flag, but Palmer had it covered.

Giedo van der Garde took another podium for Caterham in third, unable to keep up with Chilton but eventually getting away from iSport's Marcus Ericsson.

Caterham got both cars in the top five as Rodolfo Gonzalez secured fifth. Gonzalez had Luiz Razia all over him for much of the race, until the Arden driver dropped back to focus on getting the fastest lap bonus instead, which he successfully achieved.

Racing Engineering's Nathanael Berthon held off Esteban Gutierrez (Lotus) for seventh, a battle in which Berthon's team-mate Fabio Leimer had also featured before hitting the Swimming Pool barriers.

[code]Sprint Race Results - 30 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Jolyon Palmer iSport 45m41.227s

2. Max Chilton Carlin + 1.083s

3. Giedo van der Garde Caterham + 4.426s

4. Marcus Ericsson iSport + 8.133s

5. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham + 19.968s

6. Luiz Razia Arden + 23.273s

7. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering + 26.376s

8. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus + 26.880s

9. Simon Trummer Arden + 31.663s

10. Josef Kral Addax + 35.338s

11. Rio Haryanto Carlin + 36.546s

12. Nigel Melker Ocean + 37.164s

Retirements:

James Calado Lotus 20 laps

Julian Leal Trident 12 laps

Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 8 laps

Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 8 laps

Stephane Richelmi Trident 0 laps

Davide Valsecchi DAMS 0 laps

Johnny Cecotto Addax 0 laps

Stefano Coletti Coloni 0 laps

Tom Dillmann Rapax 0 laps

Victor Guerin Ocean 0 laps

Felipe Nasr DAMS 0 laps

Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 0 laps

Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 0 laps

Fabio Onidi Coloni 0 laps

Lineker · May 27, 2012

Mitch Evans topped free practice on the debut appearance of the GP3 series at Monaco, setting a stunning pace in what proved to be the dying seconds of the session.

The MW Arden driver looked set to miss out on top spot to Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa after heading the timesheets during the middle stages of the 40-minute session.

But Evans repeatedly set fastest times in the middle sector, eventually stringing together a lap which was a remarkable seven-tenths of a second better than the Portuguese. He ended up setting fastest times overall in both the second and third sectors, showing that his place on top of the times was no fluke.

Evans set his time with three minutes to go just before red flags brought proceedings to a premature end when Carlin driver Will Buller spun entering Casino Square. Buller kept the car out of the barriers, but didn't have enough space to recover and had to rely on the marshals to recover him.

With Evans the only driver to break the 1m29s barrier, da Costa held onto second place ahead of Lotus driver Conor Daly. His team-mate Aaro Vainio, quickest overall in sector one, was fourth fastest.

Sometime GP2 driver Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) ended up fifth, just ahead of Alex Brundle (Carlin), the son of ex-grand prix driver Martin Brundle.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of the 26-car field were Monaco rookies, there were few incidents other than Buller's.

Manor Racing driver Dmitry Suranovich spun at Rascasse with five minutes to go, triggering a yellow flag that forced several drivers to abandon their laps, but beyond that it was an impressively clean session.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m28.492s

2. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m29.207s + 0.715s

3. Conor Daly Lotus 1m29.289s + 0.797s

4. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m29.442s + 0.950s

5. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m29.648s + 1.156s

6. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m29.730s + 1.238s

7. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m29.876s + 1.384s

8. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m29.953s + 1.461s

9. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m29.991s + 1.499s

10. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m29.994s + 1.502s

11. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m30.267s + 1.775s

12. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m30.394s + 1.902s

13. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m30.424s + 1.932s

14. William Buller Carlin 1m30.534s + 2.042s

15. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m30.581s + 2.089s

16. Kotaro Sakurai Status 1m30.927s + 2.435s

17. Alice Powell Status 1m31.429s + 2.937s

18. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m31.460s + 2.968s

19. Jakub Klasterka Jenzer 1m31.524s + 3.032s

20. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m32.074s + 3.582s

21. Vicky Piria Trident 1m32.265s + 3.773s

22. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m32.285s + 3.793s

23. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m32.405s + 3.913s

24. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m32.460s + 3.968s

25. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m32.886s + 4.394s

26. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m34.583s + 6.091s[/code]

Aaro Vainio claimed his first ever GP3 Series pole position in an early Friday morning qualifying for the series' maiden Monaco race.

Like GP2, GP3 split its field into two groups for Monte Carlo qualifying, with the group with the faster pacesetter taking the pole position side of the grid.

Lotus driver Vainio led the way in the second segment and went quickly enough to take pole from group one leader Kevin Ceccon (Ocean), as the Auto GP champion put the tough start to his GP3 career at Barcelona behind him and earned a front row start.

Atech CRS' Tamas Pal Kiss also showed his best GP3 qualifying form so far as he closed right in on Vainio at the end of the second session to secure third on the grid, alongside championship leader Mitch Evans (MW Arden), who was Ceccon's closest rival in the first group.

Evans' team-mate David Fumanelli will share row three with Status driver Marlon Stockinger. Lotus duo Daniel Abt and Conor Daly were fourth in their respective sessions so complete the overall top eight.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Session

1. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m28.008s Group 2

2. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m28.922s Group 1

3. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m28.123s Group 2

4. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m29.108s Group 1

5. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m28.218s Group 2

6. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m29.152s Group 1

7. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m28.653s Group 2

8. Conor Daly Lotus 1m29.246s Group 1

9. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m28.667s Group 2

10. Will Buller Carlin 1m29.757s Group 1

11. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m29.029s Group 2

12. Alice Powell Status 1m30.400s Group 1

13. Kotaro Sakurai Status 1m29.248s Group 2

14. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m30.436s Group 1

15. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m29.952s Group 2

16. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m30.637s Group 1

17. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m30.610s Group 2

18. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m30.782s Group 1

19. Vicky Piria Trident 1m31.023s Group 2

20. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m31.427s Group 1

21. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m31.144s Group 2

22. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m31.474s. Group 1

23. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m33.163s Group 2

24. Jakub Klasterka Jenzer 1m32.061s Group 1

25. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m34.793s Group 2

26. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m49.760s Group 1

Aaro Vainio claimed his first GP3 victory on the category's debut in Monaco to take the lead in the championship. The Finn, driving for the ART-run Lotus GP team, converted his maiden pole position into the lead at the start. He extended his margin over Atech CRS driver Tamas Pal Kiss, who jumped front-row starter Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) off the grid, to 3.6 seconds by the end of lap six and looked on course for a comfortable victory. Kiss then mounted an attack, reeling off several fastest laps to close the gap to under two-and-a-half seconds by the end of lap 10. But that was as close as he got during this mid-race pursuit and Vainio was able to close out his win comfortably, easing off markedly on the final lap and winning by 1.9s. It was a typically processional Monaco race, with the top 13 not changing between the end of the first and the final laps. Ceccon, who set fastest lap on the final tour, had a lonely run to third ahead of David Fumanelli, who had to resist the advances of MW Arden team-mate Mitch Evans in the early stages. Lotus driver Daniel Abt finished sixth despite pressure from Antonio Felix da Costa (Carlin), while behind them Marlon Stockinger bagged pole position for Saturday's reversed grid race by finishing eighth in his Status entry. Alex Brundle, son of 1994 Monaco Grand Prix runner-up Martin, finished 10th for Carlin, while Conor Daly (Lotus), a winner on the opening weekend of the GP3 season, was classified 23rd after a jump-start penalty compounded a disastrous getaway that had already left him near the back at the end of the opening lap.

Feature Race Results - 18 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Aaro Vainio Lotus 27m06.685s

2. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 1.994s

3. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 10.519s

4. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 16.156s

5. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 17.789s

6. Daniel Abt Lotus + 18.169s

7. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin + 18.548s

8. Marlon Stockinger Status + 20.440s

9. Tio Ellinas Manor + 20.733s

10. Alex Brundle Carlin + 25.083s

11. Alice Powell Status + 26.084s

12. Will Buller Carlin + 29.591s

13. Kotaro Sakurai Status + 31.319s

14. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 31.612s

15. Fabiano Machado Manor + 34.249s

16. Dimitry Suranovich Manor + 34.851s

17. John Wartique Atech CRS + 47.648s

18. Robert Cregan Ocean + 57.033s

19. Vicky Piria Trident + 59.726s

20. Antonio Spavone Trident + 1m00.765s

21. Matias Laine MW Arden + 1m02.454s

22. Jakub Klasterka Jenzer + 1m03.565s

Retirements:

Conor Daly Lotus 17 laps

Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 8 laps

Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 8 laps

Carmen Jorda Ocean 5 laps[/code]

Marlon Stockinger collected his maiden GP3 Series victory in the second Monaco race, which was shortened by a horrendous accident for Conor Daly.

The American driver escaped unhurt from the crash, which saw him launched high into the air at the chicane approach after contact with Dimitry Suranovich.

Status driver Stockinger held the lead from pole and resisted constant pressure from Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa, as the two stormed away from their rivals while running absolutely together.

Their battle was truncated on lap 11 out of 18 when Daly's crash happened. The Lotus driver had managed to get up to 12th place from 23rd on the grid with a storming first lap, but then got stuck behind Suranovich. The Manor car lost its rear wing in their fraught battle, yet somehow continued in front of Daly.

It all came to a head on the fast run out of the tunnel on the 11th lap, when Daly was launched into the air over the back of Suranovich's car, making contact with the top of the debris fence on the harbour side before crashing back down onto the track.

While Daly emerged unhurt, the fencing had been damaged in the accident and the decision was taken to show the red flags after several laps behind the safety car.

Daly was the second driver to take to the air during the race. Carlin duo Will Buller and Alex Brundle and Status' Alice Powell tried to go three-abreast through Sainte Devote on lap one, but made contact, flipping Buller's car upside down. Brundle had to park with damage, while Powell required a pitstop for repairs.

That incident also caused a safety car, leaving few laps of green flag running in between crashes.

Behind Stockinger and da Costa, Lotus's Daniel Abt completed the podium, chased by MW Arden team-mates Mitch Evans and David Fumanelli, Ocean's Kevin Ceccon, race one winner Aaro Vainio (Lotus), Manor's Tio Ellinas, Friday podium finisher Tamas Pal Kiss (Atech CRS) and Jenzer driver Robert Visoiu.

[code]Sprint Race Results - 13 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Marlon Stockinger Status 21m37.673s

2. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin + 0.687s

3. Daniel Abt Lotus + 1.820s

4. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 2.685s

5. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 3.651s

6. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 5.337s

7. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 6.266s

8. Tio Ellinas Manor + 7.090s

9. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 7.762s

10. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 9.055s

11. Dimitry Suranovich Manor + 1m10.884s

12. Robert Cregan Ocean + 1m11.405s

13. Vicky Piria Trident + 1m12.105s

14. John Wartique Atech CRS + 1m12.710s

15. Antonio Spavone Trident + 1m13.514s

16. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 1m14.329s

17. Matias Laine MW Arden + 1m15.267s

18. Fabiano Machado Manor + 1m16.582s

19. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS + 1m17.725s

20. Jakub Klasterka Jenzer + 1m18.420s

21. Kotaro Sakurai Status + 1m19.123s

22. Carmen Jorda Ocean + 1m19.910s

23. Alice Powell Status + 1m20.504s

Retirements:

Conor Daly Lotus 10 laps

Alex Brundle Carlin 0 laps

Will Buller Carlin 0 laps

Fucking hell!

Dmitry Suranovich has been excluded from the results of the second Monaco GP3 race for his part in Conor Daly's terrifying accident.

Suranovich was defending 11th place from Daly on lap 11 when they made contact on the way out of the tunnel. Daly's ART-run Lotus car flew into the air and struck the top of the debris fence on the harbour side before landing violently the right way up at the chicane. Daly was unhurt.

Manor driver Suranovich had already lost his car's rear wing and had ignored the officials' black and orange flag, leading to him losing his 11th place in the results.

Prior to the crash, Daly had charged up from 23rd place to 12th.

"Car was mega and I was having so much fun," Daly wrote on his Twitter feed. "But can't help it when other people do stupid stuff.

"Thank you GP3 for having a safe car. That was definitely the biggest crash I've ever had."

Lineker · June 10, 2012

The GP3 Series is switching to a more powerful 400bhp engine for the 2013 season.

Since its inaugural season in 2010, GP3 has used a two-litre turbocharged engine producing 280bhp. The move will shift the category's focus from the bottom of the single-seater ladder to above Formula 3.

The current Dallara GP3/10 chassis will again be used, but with revisions to its nose, sidepods and engine cover.

"When we started to think about our next generation car, we based our design on what has made the series a success since its inception, which was a low-cost machine that best prepared the drivers for GP2 with a high level of downforce and the same kind of tyres as GP2 and F1," said series CEO Bruno Michel.

"But we also added two major parameters: we want our car to be more powerful and more selective in order to make it an even better learning tool for young drivers who wish to graduate to GP2 and then to F1.

"To achieve this, we have thus opted for a naturally-aspirated 400hp engine which will make the drivers gain three to four seconds per lap on average, but we have also decided to redesign part of the car such as the nose, the sidepods and the engine cover, of course. We will also focus on working a lot with Pirelli in order to make the GP3 tyres closer to the ones used in GP2 and in F1."

Michel added that cost was a primary concern as far as the changes to the car are concerned, which was why an all-new chassis was not required.

"The costs will be quite similar to the ones today, but this new car will be much more selective and powerful. The modifications on the car will be implemented in the form of an upgrade kit in order to save the teams from purchasing a brand new chassis, thus being cost effective.

Michel confirmed that his series would now tender for nine teams to fill its ranks next season.

"We will also keep nine teams and a maximum of 27 cars on the grid," he said. "We feel like 30 cars was too many and this season, we can see that 27 is a perfect number for our Series. Teams who wish to gain entry for the next three years are welcome to send us an application from today."

Lineker · June 17, 2012

Thursday:

MW Arden's Mattias Laine set the pace on GP3's first day of mid-season testing at Valencia.

The Finn was fastest almost immediately, before gradually working his way down to a 1m26.610s in the morning session.

That proved unmatched for the remainder of the day, although three other drivers were able to get within one tenth of a second of his benchmark.

Daniel Abt (Lotus GP) came closest to deposing Laine, lapping within three thousandths of a second, while Tio Ellinas (Manor) and Laine's Arden team-mate David Fumanelli also threatened, finishing third and fourth respectively.

Monaco race winner Marlon Stockinger (Status), Antonio Felix da Costa (Carlin) and Barcelona winner Conor Daly (Lotus GP) rounded out the top seven, the trio - like those above them - all setting their fastest times in the morning.

Trident's Nico Muller, returning to the series for testing duties only, was one of the rare few to improve in the second session. Tenth fastest in the morning, he posted a 1m26.865s in the afternoon, enough to top the session and end the day eighth fastest overall, ahead of Patric Niederhauser (Jenzer) and the third Arden of Mitch Evans.

Manor's Fabiano Machado was the cause of two red flags - the first in the morning when he made a visit to the gravel trap, the second in the afternoon when he stopped out on track. Laine and current championship leader Aaro Vainio (Lotus GP) also stopped on circuit late on.

On her series debut Samin Gomez (Jenzer) finished 22nd and 21st field in the respective sessions.

Morning session:

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m26.610s

2. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m26.613s + 0.003s

3. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m26.629s + 0.019s

4. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m26.686s + 0.076s

5. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m26.725s + 0.115s

6. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m26.817s + 0.207s

7. Conor Daly Lotus 1m26.836s + 0.226s

8. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m26.932s + 0.322s

9. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m27.134s + 0.524s

10. Nico Muller Trident 1m27.317s + 0.707s

11. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m27.323s + 0.713s

12. William Buller Carlin 1m27.332s + 0.722s

13. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m27.516s + 0.906s

14. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m27.524s + 0.914s

15. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m27.579s + 0.969s

16. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m27.651s + 1.041s

17. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m28.043s + 1.433s

18. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m28.142s + 1.532s

19. Vicky Piria Trident 1m28.217s + 1.607s

20. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m29.047s + 2.437s

21. Alice Powell Status 1m29.067s + 2.457s

22. Samin Gomez Jenzer 1m29.179s + 2.569s

23. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m29.493s + 2.883s

24. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m29.672s + 3.062s

25. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m30.512s + 3.902s

Afternoon session:

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Nico Muller Trident 1m26.865s

2. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m27.046s + 0.181s

3. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m27.663s + 0.798s

4. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m27.721s + 0.856s

5. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m27.723s + 0.858s

6. Conor Daly Lotus 1m27.785s + 0.920s

7. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m27.842s + 0.977s

8. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m27.870s + 1.005s

9. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m27.912s + 1.047s

10. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m27.982s + 1.117s

11. William Buller Carlin 1m27.990s + 1.125s

12. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m28.059s + 1.194s

13. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m28.144s + 1.279s

14. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m28.417s + 1.552s

15. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m28.515s + 1.650s

16. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m28.693s + 1.828s

17. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m28.901s + 2.036s

18. Vicky Piria Trident 1m29.003s + 2.138s

19. Alice Powell Status 1m29.022s + 2.157s

20. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m29.045s + 2.180s

21. Samin Gomez Jenzer 1m29.132s + 2.267s

22. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m29.481s + 2.616s

23. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m29.694s + 2.829s

24. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m29.920s + 3.055s

25. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m31.040s + 4.175s[/code]

Friday:

Will Buller set the pace on the second and final day of the GP3 Series' mid-season test at Valencia on Friday.

The 19-year-old Briton took his Carlin-run car to the top of the timesheets during the morning session in 1m26.389 - over 0.3 seconds faster than Matias Laine managed the previous day.

Formula Renault 3.5 racer Nico Muller, who returned to GP3 machinery to help out the Trident squad this week, was less than a tenth of a second slower while Mitch Evans completed the top three for MW Arden.

Evans then topped the afternoon session by a thousandth of a second from Buller, but with times around 1.2s slower than those set in the morning, this made no difference to the overall classification.

Antonio Felix da Costa made it two Carlin cars in the top four, while Tio Ellinas, Patric Niederhauser and championship leader Aaro Vainio followed for the Manor, Jenzer and Lotus teams.

The top 10 was completed by Auto GP champion Kevin Ceccon (Ocean), Daniel Abt (Lotus) and Marlon Stockinger (Status).

With Jenzer's Robert Visoiu missing the day in order to take a school exam, his place was taken by Irishman Gary Thompson. The Japanese F3 regular was 20th in the morning and overall, but improved to sixth in the afternoon session on his first time in a GP3 machine.

The red flags came out twice during the day. The first delay was caused when Trident driver Vicky Piria slid into the gravel within the first 20 minutes - denying her team-mate Muller a chance of improving his early benchmark time.

The later stoppage occurred when Ceccon went straight on into a different gravel trap.

[code]Morning times:

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Will Buller Carlin 1m26.389s

2. Nico Muller Trident 1m26.481s + 0.092s

3. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m26.543s + 0.154s

4. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m26.641s + 0.252s

5. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m26.654s + 0.265s

6. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m26.693s + 0.304s

7. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m26.810s + 0.421s

8. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m26.865s + 0.476s

9. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m26.879s + 0.490s

10. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m26.956s + 0.567s

11. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m27.006s + 0.617s

12. Conor Daly Lotus 1m27.067s + 0.678s

13. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m27.077s + 0.688s

14. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m27.188s + 0.799s

15. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m27.645s + 1.256s

16. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m27.825s + 1.436s

17. Vicky Piria Trident 1m27.993s + 1.604s

18. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m28.092s + 1.703s

19. Alice Powell Status 1m28.117s + 1.728s

20. Gary Thompson Jenzer 1m28.318s + 1.929s

21. Samin Gomez Jenzer 1m28.343s + 1.954s

22. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m28.414s + 2.025s

23. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m28.486s + 2.097s

24. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m28.762s + 2.373s

25. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m29.328s + 2.939s

Afternoon times:

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m27.543s

2. Will Buller Carlin 1m27.544s + 0.001s

3. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m27.566s + 0.023s

4. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m27.853s + 0.310s

5. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m28.164s + 0.621s

6. Gary Thompson Jenzer 1m28.275s + 0.732s

7. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m28.286s + 0.743s

8. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m28.294s + 0.751s

9. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m28.301s + 0.758s

10. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m28.542s + 0.999s

11. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m28.661s + 1.118s

12. Alice Powell Status 1m28.678s + 1.135s

13. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m28.799s + 1.256s

14. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m28.859s + 1.316s

15. Conor Daly Lotus 1m28.905s + 1.362s

16. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m29.208s + 1.665s

17. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m29.223s + 1.680s

18. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m29.380s + 1.837s

19. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m29.508s + 1.965s

20. Samin Gomez Jenzer 1m29.509s + 1.966s

21. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m29.897s + 2.354s

22. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m30.333s + 2.790s

23. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m30.916s + 3.373s

24. Vicky Piria Trident 1m30.967s + 3.424s

Lineker · June 17, 2012

World champion Sebastian Vettel has become the first Formula 1 driver to confirm his presence in this year's Race of Champions.

The event, which this year moves to Thailand, will take place on December 15-16 in Bangkok's Rajamangala Stadium.

Red Bull driver Vettel will be back in the end-of-year event. The two-time champion won the individual Race of Champions in 2010 and has also been victorious in the Nations Cup alongside Michael Schumacher.

"I've never been to Thailand before so I'm very much looking forward to having the Race Of Champions in Bangkok," said Vettel. "I think it's a great venue and hopefully there will be plenty of people supporting us and cheering for us when we are racing.

"I've been part of the Race of Champions for quite a few years now and I really like it. Every year the atmosphere between the drivers is different to when we meet each other at the racetrack. It's more relaxed, we enjoy ourselves in the evenings and we usually we have a very good time there.

"Together with Michael, we've been very successful for Team Germany in the ROC Nations Cup. So that's still the most important event for us. But it would be great to get through to the final of the main Race of Champions at last and win that too..."

Lineker · June 17, 2012

The Audi R18 driven by Frenchman Benoit Treluyer, Switzerland's Marcel Fassler and Germany's Andre Lotterer won the 80th Le Mans 24-Hour race here on Sunday. It's the first time that a hybrid car had won the prestigious race since its inception in 1923.

Lineker · June 27, 2012

Auto GP driver Daniel de Jong will stand in for Ricardo Teixeira in the Rapax line-up for this weekend's GP2 races in Valencia.

The team said that Teixeira had been sidelined by illness. Rapax regular Tom Dillmann will represent Teixeira's sponsors, while de Jong will fill in for him in the team's second car.

"It's going to be a really big challenge to step into the GP2 Series in the middle of the season but I can't wait to get out there in Valencia, it's a great opportunity for me," said 19-year-old Dutchman de Jong.

"I know it's going to be the biggest challenge of my career so far but I'm hoping we can do a good job and move forward from Valencia on."

Team owner Gianfranco Sovernigo said Rapax had already been negotiating with de Jong for 2013 after he had tested with the squad during the winter.

"We met with Daniel in the 2012 pre-season tests and we've always been in-touch with the goal of working together for 2013," said Sovernigo. "At the eve of the round at Valencia, the chance came earlier than planned, and for us it's been a logical decision."

Marcus Ericsson topped free practice on Friday ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session for round six of the GP2 Series, as the resurrection in fortunes of former series champion iSport continued at the Valencia Street Circuit.

Ericsson, whose team-mate Jolyon Palmer won last time out at Monaco, lapped in 1m48.088s, outpacing series leader Davide Valsecchi of DAMS by 0.163 seconds.

Giedo van der Garde was third fastest for Caterham, despite a scary moment when a weaving Fabrizio Crestani (Lazarus) did not see him coming and forced him into evasive action.

Palmer was fourth fastest, to underline iSport's recent renaissance, just 0.002s off van der Garde's time. Monaco race one winner Johnny Cecotto Jr was fifth quickest for Addax, ahead of Carlin's Max Chilton.

Fabio Leimer was next up for Racing Engineering, followed by James Calado (Lotus GP), Felipe Nasr (DAMS) and Stefano Coletti (Scuderia Coloni).

It was a poor session for Luiz Razia, who is second in the championship. He was only 13th fastest in his Arden International machine.

The session was red-flagged halfway through, when Caterham's Rodolfo Gonzalez spun into the barriers as he put the power down exiting Turn 13. The delay while his car was removed cost his peers six minutes of track time.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m48.088s

2. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m48.251s + 0.163s

3. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m48.264s + 0.176s

4. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m48.266s + 0.178s

5. Johnny Cecotto Addax 1m48.472s + 0.384s

6. Max Chilton Carlin 1m48.534s + 0.446s

7. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m48.627s + 0.539s

8. James Calado Lotus 1m48.862s + 0.774s

9. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m48.939s + 0.851s

10. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m49.044s + 0.956s

11. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m49.178s + 1.090s

12. Josef Kral Addax 1m49.303s + 1.215s

13. Luiz Razia Arden 1m49.382s + 1.294s

14. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m49.461s + 1.373s

15. Simon Trummer Arden 1m49.603s + 1.515s

16. Fabiano Crestani Lazarus 1m49.605s + 1.517s

17. Tom Dillman Rapax 1m49.693s + 1.605s

18. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m49.798s + 1.710s

19. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m49.994s + 1.906s

20. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m50.126s + 2.038s

21. Julian Leal Trident 1m50.343s + 2.255s

22. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m50.467s + 2.379s

23. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m51.408s + 3.320s

24. Daniel de Jong Rapax 1m51.480s + 3.392s

25. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 1m53.161s + 5.073s

26. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 2m03.746s + 15.658s[/code]

James Calado will start from pole position in Saturday's GP2 Series feature race in Valencia after setting the fastest time in qualifying around the Spanish port-side street circuit in his Lotus GP machine.

Calado produced a phenomenal performance in the 30-minute session, putting in two laps good enough for pole position within 0.005 seconds of each other.

His strategy of running first on the soft tyre, as opposed to the super-soft, paid dividends and his opening gambit of 1m47.347s was soon followed up by a 1m47.342s lap on the same rubber.

Calado ended the session 0.007s clear of Felipe Nasr of DAMS, and even found time for a quick spin on his final run on super-softs, on which he did not improve.

Calado's team-mate Esteban Gutierrez was third quickest, a tenth off pole position, with points leader Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) fourth. Valsecchi opted to run on super-softs from the start, but his cause was not helped when the session was interrupted before it had properly begun, when Lazarus' Giancarlo Serenelli spun at Turn 8 - the corner before the bridge - and brought out the red flags just as he was starting a flier.

Valsecchi eventually produced a 1m44.458s, but his efforts to improve that on soft tyres in the closing moments were dashed by tailenders Fabrizio Crestani (Lazarus) and Rodolfo Gonzalez (Caterham) squabbling over track position, and he was forced to abort.

Giedo van der Garde will start fifth for Caterham, ahead of Carlin's Max Chilton and Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer - both of whom set their fastest times on super-softs, which bucked the trend of the majority.

iSport duo Jolyon Palmer and Marcus Ericsson were only eighth and ninth fastest, despite impressing in practice this morning, while points runner-up Luiz Razia of Arden will start down in 11th. He suffered a lurid slide when he locked-up at Turn 1 as he tried in vain to improve.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. James Calado Lotus 1m47.342s

2. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m47.349s + 0.007s

3. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m47.444s + 0.102s

4. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m47.458s + 0.116s

5. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m47.543s + 0.201s

6. Max Chilton Carlin 1m47.674s + 0.332s

7. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m47.779s + 0.437s

8. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m47.801s + 0.459s

9. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m47.972s + 0.630s

10. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m47.996s + 0.654s

11. Luiz Razia Arden 1m48.155s + 0.813s

12. Tom Dillmann Rapax 1m48.176s + 0.834s

13. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m48.222s + 0.880s

14. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m48.288s + 0.946s

15. Johnny Cecotto Addax 1m48.390s + 1.048s

16. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m48.518s + 1.176s

17. Simon Trummer Arden 1m48.565s + 1.223s

18. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m48.578s + 1.236s

19. Josef Kral Addax 1m48.626s + 1.284s

20. Julian Leal Trident 1m48.641s + 1.299s

21. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 1m48.846s + 1.504s

22. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m48.936s + 1.594s

23. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m49.021s + 1.679s

24. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m49.335s + 1.993s

25. Daniel de Jong Rapax 1m49.900s + 2.558s

26. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus

GP2 Series points leader Davide Valsecchi is among four drivers who have been given grid penalties for impeding other drivers in Valencia qualifying. Lotus driver Esteban Gutierrez and DAMS' Valsecchi will be demoted three places from their second-row slots, with the same penalty given to Addax's Monaco race winner Johnny Cecotto, who had qualified 15th. Cecotto will only actually drop two places as 17th-place qualifier Simon Trummer (Arden) has been given a one-position blocking penalty. The stewards' decisions mean that Caterham's Giedo van der Garde and Carlin's Max Chilton are elevated onto row two of the grid, behind poleman James Calado (Lotus) and his front-row partner Felipe Nasr (DAMS).

Esteban Gutierrez won Saturday's feature race at the Valencia street circuit, the 11th round of the GP2 Series, after an incident-packed race that included three safety cars. Gutierrez - who also scored victory here last year - effectively won the race by pushing Fabio Leimer (Racing Engineering) wide at the final corner during a restart, which allowed Arden's Luiz Razia past them both for a couple of corners, but Gutierrez quickly outbraked him to jump ahead. Gutierrez eventually won the race by 1.6 seconds, despite starting two places further back than he had qualified due to a grid penalty for blocking in qualifying. The moral victor of the race was Gutierrez's Lotus team-mate James Calado, who pulled out a 15s lead in a flawless first half of the race. But his failure to pit before the first safety car was called out on track - to collect debris that was scattered from Tom Dillmann's rear wing - totally unravelled all his hard work. When Calado did pit, just as the third safety car was scrambled - to retrieve Giancarlo Serenelli's stricken machine - he dropped to 10th on the road, and was ultimately classified ninth after a penalty was applied to Johnny Cecotto Jr (Addax) for an unsafe release from his pitstop. Marcus Ericsson finished second for iSport after a strong drive from ninth on the grid. He jumped ahead of Razia at the final turn with six laps remaining to grab the runner-up spot. Razia finished third, from 11th on the grid, with Leimer dropping to fourth after his clash with Gutierrez lost him a lot of time. Rio Haryanto finished fifth for Carlin, ahead of Nathanael Berthon (Racing Engineering) and Max Chilton (Carlin). The second safety car was required for Fabrizio Crestani (Lazarus) being punted into a somersault by iSport's Jolyon Palmer at Turn 10, as a slowing front-row starter Felipe Nasr (DAMS) caused a concertina effect behind him. Palmer had earlier been pushed into a spin at the third corner by Leimer. Points leader Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) suffered a terrible start, and damaged his front wing, but held off Calado in the closing stages to finish eighth, to earn him reversed-grid pole for Sunday's sprint race.

Feature Race Results - 28 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1h00m31.895s

2. Marcus Ericsson iSport + 1.615s

3. Luiz Razia Arden + 6.064s

4. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering + 6.403s

5. Rio Haryanto Carlin + 6.928s

6. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering + 7.605s

7. Max Chilton Carlin + 8.384s

8. Davide Valsecchi DAMS + 10.573s

9. James Calado Lotus + 11.099s

10. Stefano Coletti Coloni + 15.404s

11. Simon Trummer Arden + 15.782s

12. Giedo van der Garde Caterham + 15.962s

13. Julian Leal Trident + 16.869s

14. Fabio Onidi Coloni + 17.715s

15. Stephane Richelmi Trident + 18.338s

16. Josef Kral Addax + 19.580s

17. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham + 22.983s

18. Daniel de Jong Rapax + 23.456s

19. Johnny Cecotto Addax + 39.627s

20. Victor Guerin Ocean + 1 lap

Retirements:

Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 21 laps

Felipe Nasr DAMS 18 laps

Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 17 laps

Jolyon Palmer iSport 17 laps

Tom Dillmann Rapax 11 laps

Nigel Melker Ocean 1 lap[/code]

Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer has hit out at Valencia GP2 winner Esteban Gutierrez for the overtaking move that effectively won him the feature race on Saturday.

Following a second safety car period, with seven laps remaining, Leimer was in prime position to take the race win as leader James Calado had failed to take his mandatory pitstop before the first safety car, and was doomed to drop back when he did so. But Calado's Lotus GP team-mate Gutierrez made contact with Leimer at the final corner, pushed him wide and caused Leimer to drop from second to fifth, which became fourth when Calado pitted.

"Gutierrez drove into my car," said Leimer. "In my opinion this move was not fair and he destroyed my race. I was actually lucky as I was close to spinning and then even P4 would not have been possible. I am sure I could have won today, and from P7 to P1 that's not bad. I felt really comfortable and everything went well [until the collision].

"Esteban usually drives hard, but fair. Today, in my opinion, he overdid it as he also crashed into [Caterham's Giedo] van der Garde, therefore destroying both Giedo's and my races. The championship is not decided in one race, so one can race hard, but it should stay fair."

Gutierrez had previously made contact with van der Garde at Turn 17 on lap 11, causing them both to leave the track and allow Leimer ahead. Van der Garde then suffered a disastrous pitstop, when his right-rear wheelgun jammed on, and then he was forced to pit again later on due to flat-spotted front tyres. He finished 12th, but drops to fourth behind Gutierrez in the points.

"This was a horrible race," rued van der Garde. "It is incredible how unlucky someone can be. I really didn't make any major mistakes, it was all a matter of bad luck."

GP2 Series points leader Davide Valsecchi has been demoted from first to 18th on the grid for the second Valencia race as one of several penalties issued by the stewards following Saturday's feature round.

Valsecchi had recovered from a messy first lap to finish eighth in race one, but was adjudged to have overtaken the safety car when it came out following Fabrizio Crestani's dramatic accident. DAMS driver Valsecchi was given a 20-second penalty, dropping him from eighth to 18th in the results, which means he starts on row nine rather than the reversed-grid pole position his eighth place had put him in line for.

iSport's Jolyon Palmer has been given a 10-place grid penalty for causing Crestani's roll, when he clipped the Lazarus driver as the field dodged around Felipe Nasr's slowing DAMS car. As Palmer retired with damage from the collision, the punishment will mean he starts at the back - as will Addax team-mates Josef Kral and Johnny Cecotto, who were excluded from their 16th and 19th places for running tyres allocated to each other.

Valsecchi's demotion means James Calado (Lotus) picks up eighth place and race two pole. The Briton had been dominating Saturday's race until a strategic miscue among the safety car periods dropped him down the order.

Saturday's decision is Valsecchi's second penalty of the Valencia weekend, after his three-place grid demotion for the feature race, which was applied when he was found to have impeded other drivers in Friday's qualifying session. The Italian still leads the championship by 20 points over Arden's Luiz Razia.

Luiz Razia scored a sensational victory in Sunday morning's sprint race at the Valencia street circuit, the 12th round of the GP2 Series, taking the lead with only seven corners remaining from long-time leader James Calado.

Calado (Lotus GP) led the majority of the race, which was punctuated by two early safety cars. But he was chased hard early on by Carlin duo Rio Haryanto and Max Chilton.

Haryanto actually took the lead on lap 15, after lunging alongside Calado at Turn 25 on the previous lap, but Calado clung to the inside line as they surged around Turn 1, and claimed his lead back at Turn 2.

The next flashpoint in the lead battle occurred at Turn 12 on lap 20, when Haryanto's lunge down the inside turned sour, and he clattered into the side of Calado.

Haryanto was out of the race on the spot, and although Calado continued, his car was damaged in the impact and the following pack quickly caught him as he clearly lost pace.

The chase was now led by Fabio Leimer (Racing Engineering), who passed Chilton just as the top two were colliding. With four laps to go, Leimer was right with Calado, and piled on the pressure, but Calado stood firm and put up a brilliant defence, despite struggling with his ill-handling car.

It all came down to the final lap: Leimer lunged around the outside of Calado at Turn 12, but locked up and straightlined the chicane. Leimer now led, but was forced to give the place back to Calado, while Arden driver Razia - who had been down in eighth on the opening lap - emerged as the real threat. Razia had passed Giedo van der Garde's Caterham entry when he ran wide at Turn 2 on the penultimate lap, and then quickly passed Chilton at Turn 12 too.

Razia had all the momentum into Turn 17, as Calado clung to the inside line, defending hard from Leimer. But Razia grabbed the lead by driving around the outside of both at Turn 17 and claiming the inside line for the next left-hander.

Calado and Leimer then clashed, sending Leimer way wide at the right-handed sweeper that follows, and they crossed the finish line in the order Razia, Calado, Leimer and Chilton.

Nathaneal Berthon finished fifth for Racing Engineering, passing van der Garde on that oh-so-eventful last lap.

Saturday's race winner, Esteban Gutierrez of Lotus GP, was eliminated in a second-corner crash. That was sparked when Marcus Ericsson of iSport rocketed from seventh to third at Turn 1, but his attempt to go around the outside of Berthon at Turn 2 ended with him being run into the tyre wall.

Behind him, Gutierrez was similarly shoved wide by Leimer, with whom he clashed yesterday, and piled into the back of Ericsson. Stefano Coletti (Coloni) followed suit, as did points leader Davide Valsecchi (DAMS), the only one of these who was able to rejoin.

Valsecchi made two pitstops but still finished 10th. He still leads the points, but only by one point from Razia.

A second safety car period was required when Monaco winners Johnny Cecotto Jr (Addax) and Jolyon Palmer (iSport) clashed on the exit of the final corner after the first restart. Each blamed the other.

[code]Sprint Race Results

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Luiz Razia Arden 46m07.255s

2. James Calado Lotus + 1.179s

3. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering + 1.587s

4. Max Chilton Carlin + 2.425s

5. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering + 2.957s

6. Giedo van der Garde Caterham + 4.969s

7. Simon Trummer Arden + 8.415s

8. Julian Leal Trident + 9.501s

9. Daniel de Jong Rapax + 13.591s

10. Davide Valsecchi DAMS + 17.564s

11. Josef Král Addax + 21.005s

12. Tom Dillmann Rapax + 34.565s

13. Nigel Melker Ocean + 46.929s

14. Luiz Felipe Nasr DAMS + 50.083s

15. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham + 51.366s

16. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus + 57.490s

17. Fabio Onidi Coloni + 1m03.342s

18. Victor Guerin Ocean + 1m03.439s

Retirements:

Rio Haryanto Carlin 19 laps

Stephane Richelmi Trident 5 laps

Jolyon Palmer iSport 3 laps

Johnny Cecotto Jr. Addax 3 laps

Stefano Coletti Coloni 0 laps

Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 0 laps

Marcus Ericsson iSport 0 laps

Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 0 laps

Rio Haryanto has been given a five-place grid penalty for the next GP2 race at Silverstone following his collision with James Calado whilst the duo fought for the lead of Sunday's sprint race at Valencia.

The Carlin driver hit Calado at the chicane as tried to go down the inside of ART machine. The Indonesian was forced to retire after clattering over the kerbs and then also the wall.

The stewards found Haryanto was at fault for the incident, and though he retired from the race on the spot and Calado continued to finish second in the race, Haryanto was handed the grid penalty for Silverstone in retrospect.

Pirelli will provide GP2 drivers with a fifth set of tyres per weekend from the upcoming Silverstone races onwards.

An additional set of prime tyres will be permitted for each car on Fridays of race weekends, making a total of three sets of primes and two sets of options for the event, but one set of primes must be returned to Pirelli after practice.

Pirelli's racing manager Mario Isola said the change was designed to help drivers prepare better for qualifying and to encourage more action in free practice.

"By adding an extra set of softer tyres to the weekend allocation in GP2, we are giving the drivers more options in terms of strategy and more experience of the tyres," he said. "With just one set of the soft tyres available to them up to now, the drivers have tended to use these just for qualifying, without the opportunity to test them in free practice first.

"Now they will have the chance to run on them in free practice as well, while saving a new set for qualifying. This will allow them to have more information with which to plan a strategy over the course of the weekend."

Lineker · June 27, 2012

GP3 championship leader Aaro Vainio topped the times in practice on Friday morning ahead of qualifying for round three of the series at the Valencia Street Circuit in Spain.

Vainio, winner of the first race in Monaco, lapped in 2m00.094s with five minutes of the 45-minute session remaining, beating Lotus GP team-mate Conor Daly - back in race weekend action for the first time since his frightening Monaco shunt - by a quarter of a second.

Tio Ellinas was third fastest for Manor, a further tenth of a second back, with early pacesetter Mitch Evans (MW Arden) ending up fourth quickest, almost half a second off Vainio's best time.

Antonio Felix da Costa was fifth fastest for Carlin, ahead of Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) and Status GP's Monaco race two winner Marlon Stockinger. Recent Valencia test pacesetter, Will Buller, was 10th quickest for Carlin, one spot behind fellow Briton Alice Powell (Status).

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Aaro Vainio Lotus 2m00.094s

2. Conor Daly Lotus 2m00.343s + 0.249s

3. Tio Ellinas Manor 2m00.482s + 0.388s

4. Mitch Evans MW Arden 2m00.546s + 0.452s

5. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 2m00.737s + 0.643s

6. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 2m00.764s + 0.670s

7. Marlon Stockinger Status 2m00.950s + 0.856s

8. David Fumanelli MW Arden 2m00.979s + 0.885s

9. Alice Powell Status 2m01.055s + 0.961s

10. Will Buller Carlin 2m01.124s + 1.030s

11. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 2m01.136s + 1.042s

12. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 2m01.192s + 1.098s

13. Daniel Abt Lotus 2m01.570s + 1.476s

14. Alex Brundle Carlin 2m01.708s + 1.614s

15. Fabiano Machado Manor 2m01.916s + 1.822s

16. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 2m02.098s + 2.004s

17. Matias Laine MW Arden 2m02.172s + 2.078s

18. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 2m02.231s + 2.137s

19. John Wartique Atech CRS 2m02.500s + 2.406s

20. Robert Cregan Ocean 2m02.529s + 2.435s

21. Antonio Spavone Trident 2m02.922s + 2.828s

22. Vicky Piria Trident 2m02.929s + 2.835s

23. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 2m03.456s + 3.362s

24. Carmen Jorda Ocean 2m04.036s + 3.942s[/code]

GP3 frontrunner Conor Daly has been hit by a controversial 10-place grid penalty for Saturday's opening Valencia round by race stewards after they decided his actions were responsible for the accident that led to him flying into the catch-fencing in Monaco last month.

Lotus GP driver Daly, who was second fastest in practice in Valencia this morning, was judged to be at fault. He had stormed from 12th place from 23rd on the race two grid on the opening lap in Monaco, but then got stuck behind Dmitry Suranovich.

Daly hit the Manor car during their battle, removing Suranovich's rear wing, but the Russian continued in front of him.

On lap 11, Daly was launched into the air over the back of Suranovich's car shortly after they had exited the tunnel, making contact with the top of the debris fence on the harbour side before crashing back down onto the track.

Daly was unhurt, but the race had to stopped due to barrier damage.

Many observers felt that Suranovich was to blame for this second collision, as he was defending aggressively despite driving a severely-damaged car.

Suranovich was excluded from the results following the accident.

But stewards instead penalised the American as they ruled he had "collided with the rear of another competitor and removed the rear wing. After colliding again with the rear of the same competitor, the race was red flagged."

Daly will drop 10 places from his qualifying position for race one in Valencia.

Mitch Evans will start the fifth round of the GP3 Series from pole position after dominating qualifying at the Valencia Street Circuit in Spain.

Evans topped the times for the majority of the session, and led an MW Arden 1-2 ahead of David Fumanelli. The eventual margin between them was 0.033 seconds, but it would have been much larger had Evans been able to complete his last lap unhindered by a yellow flag for Jenzer's Patric Niederhauser, who ground to a halt on the start/finish straight.

Points leader Aaro Vainio will start third for Lotus GP, his efforts including a bouncy ride over the kerbs on the exit of the final turn.

Kevin Ceccon was fourth fastest for Ocean Racing Technology, ahead of Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa, who was one of the last to improve his times.

Tio Ellinas will start sixth for Marussia Manor Racing, but his final run was spoiled when he encountered the ailing Niederhauser at the final corner. Conor Daly was seventh fastest for Lotus, but will start 17th due to his 10-place grid penalty.

Monaco race two winner Marlon Stockinger was ninth quickest for Status GP, behind the third Arden car of Matias Laine. Daniel Abt rounded out the top 10 in the third Lotus machine.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m58.478s

2. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m58.511s + 0.033s

3. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m58.567s + 0.089s

4. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m58.772s + 0.294s

5. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m58.991s + 0.513s

6. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m59.009s + 0.531s

7. Conor Daly Lotus 1m59.015s + 0.537s

8. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m59.031s + 0.553s

9. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m59.091s + 0.613s

10. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m59.276s + 0.798s

11. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m59.332s + 0.854s

12. Will Buller Carlin 1m59.356s + 0.878s

13. Alice Powell Status 1m59.399s + 0.921s

14. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m59.568s + 1.090s

15. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m59.708s + 1.230s

16. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m59.820s + 1.342s

17. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m59.906s + 1.428s

18. John Wartique Atech CRS 2m00.047s + 1.569s

19. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 2m00.062s + 1.584s

20. Robert Cregan Ocean 2m00.306s + 1.828s

21. Antonio Spavone Trident 2m00.334s + 1.856s

22. Vicky Piria Trident 2m00.406s + 1.928s

23. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 2m01.300s + 2.822s

24. Carmen Jorda Ocean 2m02.103s + 3.625s

Mitch Evans dominated the first GP3 Series race of the weekend at the Valencia Street Circuit in Spain on Saturday. Evans led from start to finish from pole position in his MW Arden entry, a perfect performance that wrests the points lead from erstwhile top man Aaro Vainio of Lotus GP, who finished second. Vainio kept the gap to under a second in the first half of the race, but Kiwi Evans extended this to 2.4s by the start of the final lap, and he coasted home 2.1s ahead by the chequered flag for his second victory of the season. Evans is now two points clear of Vainio in the championship, thanks to setting the fastest lap of race in Valencia to take a maximum points haul of 31. Evans's team-mate David Fumanelli lost his front-row starting position by Turn 1, as Vainio steamed past, and then Tio Ellinas (Manor) further demoted him to fourth at Turn 2. Fumanelli fought back and pulled off a sublime switchback overtaking move on Ellinas at Turn 12 on lap 13 to secure the final place on the podium, but was over 10s in arrears of the leaders by the finish. The third Arden car of Mathias Laine finished fifth, after pulling away from a huge battle between Daniel Abt (Lotus) and Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) that required a photo finish to decide the position in Abt's favour. Lotus's Conor Daly, who was stung with a 10-place grid penalty following his Monaco adventures, then further complicated matters by jumping the start but battled back from a drive-through penalty to finish 11th. Patric Niederhauser (Jenzer) will start Sunday's reversed-grid race from pole, as he finished eighth after winning a fierce battle with Carlin's Will Buller.

Feature Race Results - 14 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 28m13.357s

2. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 2.190s

3. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 12.571s

4. Tio Ellinas Manor + 13.483s

5. Matias Laine MW Arden + 16.515s

6. Daniel Abt Lotus + 18.748s

7. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 18.833s

8. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 24.335s

9. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 27.082s

10. Will Buller Carlin + 31.834s

11. Conor Daly Lotus + 32.279s

12. John Wartique Atech CRS + 33.476s

13. Carmen Jorda Ocean + 47.838s

14. Ethen Ringel Atech CRS + 52.330s

15. Robert Cregan Ocean + 54.192s

16. Alex Brundle Carlin + 1m14.964s

17. Vicky Piria Trident + 1m18.561s

18. Alice Powell Status + 1m31.587s

19. Marlon Stockinger Status + 1 lap

Retirements:

Dmity Suranovich Manor 2 laps

Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 2 laps

Fabiano Machado Manor 0 laps

Robert Visouiu Jenzer 0 laps

Antonio Spavone Trident 0 laps[/code]

Patric Niederhauser won the second GP3 Series race of the weekend at the Valencia Street Circuit in Spain on Sunday morning. It was his maiden victory in the category and it also makes him the fifth different winner from six races.

From pole on the reversed grid, Swiss driver Niederhauser got a shock when Lotus GP's Daniel Abt made a lightning getaway from third. Abt led through Turn 1, but Niederhauser retook the lead at Turn 2 and pulled away.

Reigning Formula Abarth champion Niederhauser, who is a first-year driver in GP3, extended his lead to 1.8s by half distance, and then controlled the gap, which was 0.9s at the finish.

Behind Abt, there was a fierce battle for third. It will be decided in the stewards room, but on the track it was Tio Ellinas (Marussia Manor) who took the position. He forced longtime third-place man Kevin Ceccon of Ocean off the track after a huge lunge at the final corner on the last lap. Ceccon dropped to fifth, as Mathias Laine (Arden) also leapt ahead on the run to the finish line.

Previously, Ellinas and Ceccon had banged wheels through the opening corners of the final lap, so there will be plenty for the stewards to mull over before making a decision on whether the result stands.

Yesterday's winner Mitch Evans, celebrating his 18th birthday, finished sixth to double his championship lead over title rival Aaro Vainio of Lotus to four points. Vainio, who started ahead of him, lost out to Evans in the opening corners, but got ahead with a smart move at Turn 4 on lap 3, which levelled their points.

But a move on Laine, which would have given him the points lead, went wrong at Turn 2, and after outbraking himself, he grazed the barrier as Evans shot past him. Vainio finished a distant seventh, ahead of Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa, who set fastest lap on a brilliant drive from the back of the grid after he was given a 10-place grid penalty for a misdemeanour yesterday.

[code]Sprint Race Results - 14 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 28m13.702s

2. Daniel Abt Lotus + 0.924s

3. Tio Ellinas Manor + 5.938s

4. Matias Laine MW Arden + 6.314s

5. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 6.589s

6. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 6.940s

7. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 9.959s

8. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin + 15.020s

9. Will Buller Carlin + 19.751s

10. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 23.761s

11. Marlon Stockinger Status + 24.396s

12. Robert Visouiu Jenzer + 26.251s

13. Robert Cregan Ocean + 26.330s

14. Alex Brundle Carlin + 28.954s

15. Dmity Suranovich Manor + 33.481s

16. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 34.148s

17. Antonio Spavone Trident + 37.558s

18. Vicky Piria Trident + 46.606s

19. Fabiano Machado Manor + 56.689s

Retirements:

Conor Daly Lotus 8 laps

John Wartique Atech CRS 2 laps

Carmen Jorda Ocean 0 laps

Ethen Ringel Atech CRS 0 laps

Alice Powell Status 0 laps

Lineker · July 6, 2012

Facu Regalia will join the GP3 Series with Jenzer from next weekend's Silverstone round.

The 20-year-old Argentine driver is already contesting Auto GP and European Formula 3 Open this year, and is currently in the top six in both championships.

Regalia joins Patric Niederhauser and Robert Visoiu in the Jenzer line-up. The team took its first win of 2012 with Niederhauser in Valencia last weekend.

Jenzer started the season with Czech driver Jakub Klasterka in its third car for the opening rounds, but only fielded Niederhauser and Visoiu in Valencia.

Trident will add a third car to its GP3 line-up from Silverstone this weekend for Giovanni Venturini.

The 20-year-old Italian was a race winner in Auto GP last season, and has competed in Formula Renault 3.5 with BVM Target so far this year.

In its first year in GP3, established GP2 squad Trident only entered two cars for Vicky Piria and Antonio Spavone in the opening rounds.

The team said its deal with Venturini covered the balance of the 2012 GP3 season.

Lineker · July 12, 2012

Scuderia Coloni will not race in GP2 in the 2013 season and will forfeit all the points received during the 2012 season, the series said on Friday.

In a brief statement posted on the GP2 website, the series said that the decision comes "As a result of a disagreement between Coloni Motorsport and GP2 Organisation."

It added: "Scuderia Coloni will not participate in the series from the 2013 season. Scuderia Coloni forfeits all the points received or to be received by it as a team in the 2012 season."

No further details were given.

AUTOSPORT requested a reason for the "disagreement" from GP2 but a spokesperson said they will not add to the statement.

Team boss Enzo Coloni said in a statement on its website: "We took part in the championship since its first edition and we have many good memories from our racing seasons. I would like to thank Bruno Michel and the whole GP2 staff for their cooperation throughout the years."

Lazarus driver Fabrizio Crestani headed the times in a red-flag ridden GP2 Series free practice session at Silverstone on Friday.

Only a handful of flying laps were recorded in the soaking wet conditions, and spins caused no less than three red flags in 30 minutes.

For the record, Crestani led the way on 2m23.035s, well over a second clear of Esteban Gutierrez (Lotus GP) who was an earlier spinner.

Local hero Max Chilton (Carlin) was third fastest, ahead of Lotus GP's James Calado. Times were pretty much wholly unrepresentative of the true competitive order, however, due to all the disruption.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 2m23.035s

2. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 2m24.207s + 1.172s

3. Max Chilton Carlin 2m25.228s + 2.193s

4. James Calado Lotus 2m25.386s + 2.351s

5. Nigel Melker Ocean 2m25.934s + 2.899s

6. Julian Leal Trident 2m25.952s + 2.917s

7. Felipe Nasr DAMS 2m26.081s + 3.046s

8. Rio Haryanto Carlin 2m26.380s + 3.345s

9. Luiz Razia Arden 2m26.676s + 3.641s

10. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 2m26.900s + 3.865s

11. Johnny Cecotto Addax 2m26.959s + 3.924s

12. Marcus Ericsson iSport 2m27.814s + 4.779s

13. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 2m28.704s + 5.669s

14. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 2m29.220s + 6.185s

15. Jolyon Palmer iSport 2m32.016s + 8.981s

16. Victor Guerin Ocean 2m32.097s + 9.062s

17. Simon Trummer Arden 2m32.598s + 9.563s

18. Daniel de Jong Rapax 2m33.027s + 9.992s

19. Fabio Onidi Coloni 2m34.573s + 11.538s

20. Stephane Richelmi Trident 2m35.095s + 12.060s

21. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 2m41.346s + 18.311s

22. Josef Kral Addax 2m45.872s + 22.837s

Stefano Coletti Coloni

Ricardo Teixeira Rapax

Giedo van der Garde Caterham

Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham[/code]

Fabio Leimer will start from pole position in Saturday's GP2 Series feature race at Silverstone after setting the fastest time in qualifying on a very wet track.

Leimer was in imperious form behind the wheel of his Racing Engineering machine, at one point holding pole position by 2.288 seconds. His eventual margin was trimmed back to 0.915s, with nearest challenger Johnny Cecotto Jr overcoming a brief off at Village and his car coasting to a halt, before recovering to finish the session in second.

The session was red-flagged with 10 minutes remaining when iSport's Marcus Ericsson and Addax driver Cecotto simultaneously stopped out on the track. Ericsson required pushing off the circuit at Chapel, while Cecotto did not quite make it back to the pits under his own power. Fortunately the marshals helped him, and his mechanics were able to refettle the car and send him back into battle.

Jolyon Palmer of iSport will start third, just 0.068s slower than Cecotto, and both will be hoping to avoid the collision they suffered in Valencia last time out. Stefano Coletti grabbed fourth to cheer Scuderia Coloni's weekend, after the news of its exit from the series at the end of the season.

Lotus GP duo Esteban Gutierrez and James Calado will share the third row, the pairing just 0.016s apart on the timesheet. Carlin's Rio Haryanto was seventh fastest, but he will start 17th due to a penalty for his clash with Calado in Valencia. That moves team-mate Max Chilton up to seventh, ahead of title challenger Luiz Razia (Arden) and Caterham's Giedo van der Garde.

It was a bizarre session for DAMS, with both its drivers off the pace and stopping out on track within moments of each other. Points leader Davide Valsecchi will start 11th, after pulling off at Club corner, while Felipe Nasr qualified one spot ahead of him, his car grinding to a halt on the Wellington Straight.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 2m01.889s

2. Johnny Cecotto Jr Addax 2m02.804s + 0.915s

3. Jolyon Palmer iSport 2m02.872s + 0.983s

4. Stefano Coletti Coloni 2m03.004s + 1.115s

5. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 2m03.258s + 1.369s

6. James Calado Lotus 2m03.274s + 1.385s

7. Rio Haryanto Carlin 2m03.398s + 1.509s

8. Max Chilton Carlin 2m03.423s + 1.534s

9. Luiz Razia Arden 2m03.553s + 1.664s

10. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 2m03.565s + 1.676s

11. Felipe Nasr DAMS 2m03.581s + 1.692s

12. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 2m03.600s + 1.711s

13. Nigel Melker Ocean 2m03.699s + 1.810s

14. Josef Kral Addax 2m04.029s + 2.140s

15. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 2m04.140s + 2.251s

16. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 2m04.280s + 2.391s

17. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 2m04.430s + 2.541s

18. Marcus Ericsson iSport 2m04.767s + 2.878s

19. Daniel de Jong Rapax 2m04.782s + 2.893s

20. Victor Guerin Ocean 2m05.040s + 3.151s

21. Julian Leal Trident 2m05.218s + 3.329s

22. Fabio Onidi Coloni 2m05.350s + 3.461s

23. Simon Trummer Arden 2m05.573s + 3.684s

24. Stephane Richelmi Trident 2m05.677s + 3.788s

25. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 2m07.231s + 5.342s

26. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 2m09.161s + 7.272s

GP2 points leader Davide Valsecchi will start from the back of the grid for the Silverstone feature race after both receiving a grid demotion and being excluded from qualifying. The DAMS driver had qualified 12th, but was initially given a 10-place penalty for overtaking during a red-flag period in practice. Valsecchi was then one of four drivers excluded from qualifying altogether due to what a GP2 statement called "failing to satisfy a technical regulation relating to the quantity of fuel available after the session". Also affected were Valsecchi's DAMS team-mate Felipe Nasr, iSport's Marcus Ericsson and Coloni's Stefano Coletti, who had qualified 11th, 18th and fourth respectively. Both DAMS drivers had stopped on track near the end of qualifying. Caterham's Giedo van der Garde, who was 10th in the session, will drop 10 places for overtaking after the red flags were shown as well. Fabio Leimer will start on pole position for Racing Engineering, while Valsecchi's nearest title rival Luiz Razia is eighth on the grid. The Brazilian is only one point behind Valsecchi in the standings following his dramatic Valencia win.

Esteban Gutierrez won the GP2 Series feature race at Silverstone on Saturday, after long-time leader Fabio Leimer failed to pit before a safety car - an error that wiped out his huge advantage and turned a potential victory into a 15th-place finish. Leimer led away from pole in a race started under the safety car due to soaking wet conditions. After six laps under the safety car, during which Daniel de Jong (Rapax) managed to crash into the back of Rodolfo Gonzalez (Caterham), Leimer pulled out a huge lead in his Racing Engineering machine. Leimer was nine seconds in front when the safety car was deployed again to recover James Calado's stricken Lotus GP car, which suffered a gearbox failure at Farm on lap 18. All of Leimer's rivals had pitted by this point, but for some reason he did not. Any chance he had of extending his lead again, before making his mandatory stop, was extinguished by a third safety car to recover Stefano Coletti's Coloni car, which had crashed on slicks at Chapel. This opened the door for Gutierrez to inherit the victory, as he had jumped ahead of both Addax driver Johnny Cecotto Jr and iSport's Jolyon Palmer during the pitstop cycle. All of the frontrunning cars went for two more wet tyres during the stops, although the track was drying towards the end. "Strategy played a big role in this race," said Gutierrez. "I focused on not making a mistake. I'm really happy and grateful for this victory." Cecotto finished second ahead of Palmer, while Nigel Melker produced some late-race heroics in his Ocean-run machine to hold off new points leader Luiz Razia (Arden). Erstwhile points leader Davide Valsecchi went for a bold early pitstop strategy, which helped him up to seventh from his lowly starting position. He finished just behind DAMS team-mate Felipe Nasr.

Feature Race Results - 25 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1h00m22.657s

2. Johnny Cecotto Addax + 1.700s

3. Jolyon Palmer iSport + 5.257s

4. Nigel Melker Ocean + 6.368s

5. Luiz Razia Arden + 6.523s

6. Felipe Nasr DAMS + 7.552s

7. Davide Valsecchi DAMS + 9.051s

8. Giedo van der Garde Caterham + 9.841s

9. Max Chilton Carlin + 11.116s

10. Rio Haryanto Carlin + 11.958s

11. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus + 12.130s

12. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering + 12.843s

13. Fabio Onidi Coloni + 14.982s

14. Stephane Richelmi Trident + 15.701s

15. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering + 16.421s

16. Simon Trummer Arden + 16.818s

17. Josef Kral Addax + 17.833s

18. Victor Guerin Ocean + 18.167s

19. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax + 23.183s

20. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus + 24.345s

21. Julian Leal Trident + 38.351s

22. Marcus Ericsson iSport + 39.831s

23. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham + 2 laps

Retirements:

Stefano Coletti Coloni 20 laps

James Calado Lotus 17 laps

Daniel de Jong Rapax 1 lap[/code]

Title rivals Luiz Razia and Davide Valsecchi finished first and second in the GP2 sprint race at Silverstone on Sunday after some thrilling on-track battles, with Razia now heading the points with five rounds remaining.

Arden driver Razia's 5.6-second winning margin did not reflect how close the action was in mainly dry conditions, although increasing amounts of drizzle made things tricky.

From fourth on the grid, he passed Valsecchi's DAMS car for third on the opening lap around the outside of Stowe. On lap two, he dived past Felipe Nasr (DAMS) for second at Brooklands and quickly homed in on poleman, and early leader, Giedo van der Garde (Caterham). Razia repeated his earlier brave pass around the outside of Stowe on the Dutchman but was not able to pull away.

That was because Nasr lunged past van der Garde at The Loop on lap three, and quickly re-attacked Razia. He jumped ahead of him with a bold outbraking move at Village on lap eight, only to run wide and allow Razia back past. That was one of three position changes in the top six, as Valsecchi passed van der Garde for third at Stowe, and Esteban Gutierrez overtook Max Chilton (Carlin) for sixth at Vale.

Razia got the hammer down at this point, and pulled away from Nasr. The Brazilian fell back into the clutches of his team-mate Valsecchi, and the Italian passed him on the exit of Stowe with six laps remaining.

Although he got to within under a second of Razia's lead on lap 18, Valsecchi gave up the chase and coasted home in second. He now trails Razia by six points in the championship, however, as a result.

Nasr held on to third, ahead of Gutierrez. The latter's removal of Johnny Cecotto from fourth, after running wide at Stowe and clattering into the Venezuelan as he rejoined, is likely to result in a stewards' enquiry. Cecotto (Addax) was fired into the tyre wall at Vale, and out of the race, with just a few yards remaining.

Jolyon Palmer finished fifth for iSport, ahead of Ocean's Nigel Melker.

[code]Sprint Race Results - 21 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Luiz Razia Arden 37m28.656s

2. Davide Valsecchi DAMS + 5.642s

3. Felipe Nasr DAMS + 17.775s

4. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus + 19.969s

5. Jolyon Palmer iSport + 25.869s

6. Nigel Melker Ocean + 28.600s

7. Marcus Ericsson iSport + 31.980s

8. Fabio Onidi Coloni + 35.797s

9. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering + 38.127s

10. Josef Kral Addax + 40.378s

11. Simon Trummer Arden + 40.533s

12. Rio Haryanto Carlin + 48.471s

13. Daniel de Jong Rapax + 54.161s

14. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering + 54.643s

15. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax + 1m15.967s

16. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus + 1m17.971s

17. Julian Leal Trident + 1m30.456s

Retirements:

Johnny Cecotto Addax 20 laps

Max Chilton Carlin 19 laps

James Calado Lotus 19 laps

Giedo van der Garde Caterham 19 laps

Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 19 laps

Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 3 laps

Stephane Richelmi Trident 0 laps

Stefano Coletti Coloni 0 laps

Victor Guerin Ocean 0 laps

Both Lotus drivers will be demoted 10 places on the grid for the first Hockenheim GP2 round as punishments for clashes in the Silverstone sprint race on Sunday.

Saturday race-winner Esteban Gutierrez clashed with Johnny Cecotto on the final lap at Silverstone, hitting the Addax driver as he rejoined the track at Stowe amid a late battle. Gutierrez went on to finish fourth, a result he keeps, while Cecotto was out.

Gutierrez's team-mate James Calado gets his penalty for colliding with compatriot Max Chilton at Silverstone, ending both their races.

The Lotus pair are currently third and fourth in the championship, Gutierrez 36 points behind leader Luiz Razia and Calado a further 19 points adrift.

Lineker · July 12, 2012

Antonio Felix da Costa set the pace in the first practice session for the GP3 Series on a very wet Silverstone Grand Prix circuit on Friday morning.

The Portuguese Carlin driver waited until the very last minute to post his 2m11.463s lap in atrocious conditions that remained in place throughout the 45 minutes of running.

Countless spins and offs, including one for da Costa, peppered the session and the yellow flags seemed to be constantly waving.

Tamas Pal Kiss was caught out by one such yellow, having initially set his best time to head the field while one was waving. That time of 2m12.552s was disallowed but, no matter, for the Hungarian improved on that time anyway to end the morning second fastest, 0.37s behind da Costa.

Mitch Evans' last lap was good enough to ensure he went ahead of Patric Niederhauser, while Aaro Vainio was fifth.

Connor Daly was sixth quickest ahead of a raft of late-lap time posters including Marlon Stockinger and Tio Ellinas, who bumped Alex Brundle down from a respectable seventh to tenth in the final moments of the session on his home track.

Among the spinners were Fabio Gamberini, Facu Regalia, Kotaro Sakurai, Will Buller - who continued to end the morning 12th fastest - Alice Powell, Fabiano Machado (who caused the last yellow) and David Fumanelli.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 2m11.463s

2. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 2m11.836s + 0.373s

3. Mitch Evans MW Arden 2m12.308s + 0.845s

4. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 2m12.984s + 1.521s

5. Aaro Vainio Lotus 2m13.433s + 1.970s

6. Conor Daly Lotus 2m13.468s + 2.005s

7. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 2m13.667s + 2.204s

8. Marlon Stockinger Status 2m13.969s + 2.506s

9. Tio Ellinas Manor 2m14.583s + 3.120s

10. Alex Brundle Carlin 2m14.595s + 3.132s

11. Matias Laine MW Arden 2m15.418s + 3.955s

12. William Buller Carlin 2m15.550s + 4.087s

13. Daniel Abt Lotus 2m15.601s + 4.138s

14. Giovanni Venturini Trident 2m16.229s + 4.766s

15. David Fumanelli MW Arden 2m16.285s + 4.822s

16. Antonio Spavone Trident 2m17.078s + 5.615s

17. Facu Regalia Jenzer 2m17.848s + 6.385s

18. Vicky Piria Trident 2m18.177s + 6.714s

19. Kotaro Sakurai Status 2m18.369s + 6.906s

20. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 2m18.822s + 7.359s

21. Fabio Gamberini Atech CRS 2m19.651s + 8.188s

22. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 2m21.265s + 9.802s

23. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 2m21.415s + 9.952s

24. Alice Powell Status 2m21.834s + 10.371s

25. Fabiano Machado Manor 2m22.854s + 11.391s

26. Carmen Jorda Ocean 2m26.610s + 15.147s

27. Robert Cregan Ocean[/code]

Mitch Evans will start race seven of the 2012 GP3 Series at Silverstone from pole position in his MW Arden-run car.

The Kiwi nailed a stunning lap of 1m51.892s around Silverstone, which was over 0.3 seconds fastest than his opposition, led by his title rival Aaro Vainio of Lotus GP. Evans's second pole in succession earns him four points, which means he doubles his point lead over Vainio from four to eight.

Vainio was just 0.017s quicker than Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa. Arden's Mathias Laine will join him on the second row, followed by the remaining Lotus-run cars of Connor Daly and Daniel Abt.

Valencia race two winner Patric Niederhauser suffered a torrid session, spinning at Club and only managing 19th on the grid.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m51.892s

2. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m52.216s + 0.324s

3. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m52.233s + 0.341s

4. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m52.332s + 0.440s

5. Conor Daly Lotus 1m52.519s + 0.627s

6. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m52.543s + 0.651s

7. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m52.572s + 0.680s

8. Will Buller Carlin 1m52.648s + 0.756s

9. Kotaro Sakurai Status 1m52.807s + 0.915s

10. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m52.921s + 1.029s

11. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m52.930s + 1.038s

12. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m53.133s + 1.241s

13. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m53.536s + 1.644s

14. Facu Regalia Jenzer 1m53.549s + 1.657s

15. Giovanni Venturini Trident 1m53.624s + 1.732s

16. Vicky Piria Trident 1m53.769s + 1.877s

17. Alice Powell Status 1m53.852s + 1.960s

18. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m53.861s + 1.969s

19. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m53.893s + 2.001s

20. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m54.324s + 2.432s

21. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m54.339s + 2.447s

22. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m54.427s + 2.535s

23. Fabio Gamberini Atech CRS 1m55.175s + 3.283s

24. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m55.363s + 3.471s

25. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m55.711s + 3.819s

26. Ethen Ringel Atech CRS 1m59.371s + 7.479s

27. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m59.989s + 8.097s

GP3 Series points leader Mitch Evans believes that the four points on offer for pole position could be decisive in the outcome of this year's title race. MW Arden racer Evans scored his second successive pole of the season on Saturday morning at Silverstone, outpacing title rival Aaro Vainio of Lotus GP by 0.3s. On the back of his pole at Valencia, he now leads Vainio by eight points, 82 to 74. "It could be crucial," said Evans of the extra points on offer for poles. "Any points you can gain are important, and there's clearly a great benefit from getting pole position. Those four points you get all add-up, especially when it comes to the last few races, and can make a lot of difference over the season." Evans admitted to a mistake on his first set of tyres in qualifying at Silverstone, and briefly left the track in the tricky conditions, but nailed his pole on a stunning second run. "I had a bit of pressure on me going onto that second set, but it was a good lap," he added. "The conditions were tough, it wasn't totally dry on the racing line in places." Title rival Vainio is also acutely aware of the situation as he lost another four points to Evans, having scored four of his own points from securing pole at Monaco. "I think that losing the points for pole is more important than losing the position of starting from there, because starting P2 I have 14 laps to get ahead of him," said Vainio, who starts second in this afternoon's race. "If the guy who's on pole is 27th in the championship, then it doesn't matter, but if it's your main rival, it's big news."

Antonio Felix da Costa produced a stand-out showing to claim victory in the opening GP3 race at Silverstone. The Carlin driver defeated title protagonists Mitch Evans and Aaro Vainio (Lotus) in a straight fight with a stunning performance. MW Arden's Evans converted pole into the early lead, but a great move around the outside of the third corner, Village, took da Costa into first place - a position he held to the finish. On a track that initially featured a dry racing line but was very damp off it, the top three simply streaked away from the chasing pack in the opening stages, lapping as much as two seconds a lap quicker than the rest. All three traded fastest laps, but da Costa was faultless, and gradually eked out a comfortable lead. Behind them Lotus's Daniel Abt had a quiet run to fourth. The same could not be said of his team-mate Conor Daly, who had to charge his way back up the order after a grid demotion and a very tardy getaway. He was almost able to match da Costa's pace by the time he had fought his way past Kevin Ceccon, Alex Brundle and Tio Ellinas, but by then he was well behind the top four. The fast-starting Ellinas held on to sixth for Manor, while Brundle took a season's best seventh for Carlin. Ceccon took eighth for Ocean and pole for Sunday's reversed-grid sprint race.

Race 1 Results - 14 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 27m14.410s

2. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 7.062s

3. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 8.783s

4. Daniel Abt Lotus + 16.136s

5. Conor Daly Lotus + 22.156s

6. Tio Ellinas Manor + 22.325s

7. Alex Brundle Carlin + 38.448s

8. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 41.719s

9. Matias Laine MW Arden + 42.314s

10. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 44.489s

11. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 53.795s

12. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 1m00.061s

13. Giovanni Venturini Trident + 1m02.451s

14. Facu Regalia Jenzer + 1m03.081s

15. Kotaro Sakurai Status + 1m05.140s

16. Marlon Stockinger Status + 1m12.707s

17. Alice Powell Status + 1m26.048s

18. Vicky Piria Trident + 1m34.318s

19. Fabiano Machado Manor + 1m38.754s

20. Robert Cregan Ocean + 1m39.170s

21. Antonio Spavone Trident + 1m39.960s

22. Dmitry Suranovich Manor + 1m40.812s

23. Fabio Gamberini Atech CRS + 1 lap

Retirements:

Ethen Ringel Atech CRS 2 laps

Will Buller Carlin 0 laps[/code]

Will Buller took a nothing-to-lose gamble at Silverstone on Sunday morning and hit the jackpot with his slick-tyred strategy that won him the eighth race of the GP3 Series.

Carlin driver Buller, who crashed out on the opening lap on Saturday so was 25th on the grid, scored an 8.5-second victory after a charging drive. He had to take it easy at the start, as the track was still treacherously slippery. This was proved as Alex Brundle and Connor Daly started on slick tyres and tumbled down the order in their Carlin and Lotus-run machines.

Poleman Kevin Ceccon led initially for Ocean, before Tio Ellinas (Marussia Manor) shot past him at Stowe on the opening lap. Mitch Evans charged up to third on the opening tour, but his MW Arden machine would soon tumble back down the order to an eventual 11th.

Ellinas headed Saturday winner Antonio Felix da Costa (Carlin) in the wet phase of the race, but as the track dried, it was the well-worn wets of Jenzer drivers Patric Niederhauser and Robert Visoiu that came into their own, and they ran one-two by half-distance.

But then the brave slick runners came to the fore, and it was Buller who had manoeuvred his way into the best position to take full advantage. He hit the front at Becketts on lap 10 and motored away to a brilliant victory. Daly, who dropped way back into the pack from his fourth-place starting slot, charged through to second.

Niederhauser clung on to third, the first car home on wet tyres, while Ellinas was the first across the finish line of those who chose to pit for slicks in fourth. He set fastest lap on the final tour.

Visoiu was fifth, ahead of da Costa. Title contender Aaro Vainio (Lotus) crashed out at Vale, when he drove over the back of Arden's Mathias Laine.

[code]Race 2 Results - 14 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Will Buller Carlin 29m49.526s

2. Conor Daly Lotus + 8.577s

3. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 30.017s

4. Tio Ellinas Manor + 37.529s

5. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 52.038s

6. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin + 1m03.722s

7. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 1m05.954s

8. Fabio Gamberini Atech CRS + 1m06.482s

9. Fabiano Machado Manor + 1m07.321s

10. Alex Brundle Carlin + 1m20.941s

11. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 1m22.894s

12. Facu Regalia Jenzer + 1m23.503s

13. Kotaro Sakurai Status + 1m24.283s

14. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 1m28.143s

15. Robert Cregan Ocean + 1m44.079s

16. Giovanni Venturini Trident + 1m52.403s

17. Ethen Ringel Atech CRS + 1m54.151s

18. Matias Laine Lotus + 1 lap

19. Antonio Spavone Trident + 1 lap

Retirements:

Dmitry Suranovich Manor 12 laps

Vicky Piria Trident 12 laps

Daniel Abt Lotus 11 laps

Marlon Stockinger Status 11 laps

Aaro Vainio Lotus 11 laps

Alice Powell Status 9 laps

Lineker · July 12, 2012

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/biker-celebration-fail-2012-07-12

Lineker · July 29, 2012

Former GP2 points leader Davide Valsecchi began his quest to regain the series lead in the best possible fashion by topping free practice at Hockenheim on Friday morning for the DAMS team.

The session began in dry conditions, but leaden skies threatened to unload and there were spots of rain from the start. First victim was Johnny Cecotto Jr of Addax, who spun through 180-degrees at the Nordkurve on his first flying lap, and Arden's Simon Trummer almost followed suit seconds later.

Esteban Gutierrez of Lotus and Marcus Ericsson of iSport traded top spot early on, but it was points leader Luiz Razia (Arden) who hammered home the first truly representative P1 time, a 1m24.151s. That was demoted moments later by Valsecchi's 1m24.031s, 0.12 seconds faster.

Gutierrez was third fastest on 1m24.269s, just 0.02s quicker than Coloni's Stefano Coletti. Both Gutierrez and team-mate James Calado have a 10-place grid penalty hanging over them going into Friday afternoon's qualifying period for misdemeanours at Silverstone.

The session was interrupted by a sizeable accident sustained by Giancarlo Serenelli's Lazarus entry. He ran wide onto the damp Astroturf on the exit of the corner entering the stadium section and clipped the grass, which spun him across the track and into the tyre wall on the inside of the corner. He slammed into the wall, tearing the left-front wheel off as he spun around three times.

The Venezuelan was able to climb out of his car unaided, but was taken to the medical centre for a check-up. When the session was restarted, sufficient rain had fallen to render the remaining running time pretty useless.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m24.031s

2. Luiz Razia Arden 1m24.151s + 0.120s

3. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m24.269s + 0.238s

4. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m24.289s + 0.258s

5. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m24.337s + 0.306s

6. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m24.342s + 0.311s

7. James Calado Lotus 1m24.462s + 0.431s

8. Max Chilton Carlin 1m24.573s + 0.542s

9. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m24.622s + 0.591s

10. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m24.688s + 0.657s

11. Josef Kral Addax 1m24.804s + 0.773s

12. Johnny Cecotto Jr Addax 1m24.838s + 0.807s

13. Tom Dillmann Rapax 1m24.888s + 0.857s

14. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m24.924s + 0.893s

15. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m24.965s + 0.934s

16. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m24.974s + 0.943s

17. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m24.977s + 0.946s

18. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m25.051s + 1.020s

19. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m25.108s + 1.077s

20. Simon Trummer Arden 1m25.557s + 1.526s

21. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m25.665s + 1.634s

22. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m26.071s + 2.040s

23. Sergio Canamasas Lazarus 1m26.475s + 2.444s

24. Julian Leal Trident 1m26.762s + 2.731s

25. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 1m27.459s + 3.428s

26. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 1m28.126s + 4.095s[/code]

Caterham's Giedo van der Garde took pole position, and the four points that go with it, in qualifying for round 15 of the GP2 Series at a soaking-wet Hockenheim on Friday afternoon.

The session began in damp conditions, with a steady drizzle falling. James Calado (Lotus) set the first real representative time, a 1m45.919s, which was quickly topped by van der Garde on 1m45.783s, and then Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) on 1m45.152s.

There was then a tiny sweet-spot in the weather window, with Calado banging in a 1m44.034s, quickly followed by van der Garde topping the times on 1m44.022s. Even as he entered the start/finish straight, van der Garde was greeted with a fresh squall of rain, which quickly soaked the circuit - but his lap was good enough for pole by 0.012 seconds.

Fabio Leimer rose to third before skating off briefly into the Sachs Kurve gravel trap, but his Racing Engineering machine was 0.922s behind the pole time. Leimer will start second, however, when Calado's 10-place grid penalty is taken into account.

Nigel Melker followed his eighth on the grid at Silverstone with fourth (effectively third) at Hockenheim for Ocean, ahead of Coloni's Fabio Onidi. Valsecchi will start fifth, a couple of tenths ahead of team-mate Felipe Nasr.

Third-in-points Esteban Gutierrez qualified ninth, which will be 19th due to his 10-place grid penalty. Championship leader Luiz Razia was 10th fastest and will start eighth, two spots behind title rival Valsecchi.

Series newcomer Sergio Canamasas was an impressive 13th fastest, and will start 12th for Lazarus, which was unable to repair Giancarlo Serenelli's car in time after his big free practice crash.

Besides a couple of spins, the only incident of note was van der Garde's team-mate Rodolfo Gonzalez smacking the barrier on the inside of the kink on the back straight. He qualified 24th.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m44.022s

2. James Calado Lotus 1m44.034s + 0.012s

3. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m44.944s + 0.922s

4. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m45.063s + 1.041s

5. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m45.129s + 1.107s

6. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m45.152s + 1.130s

7. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m45.420s + 1.398s

8. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m45.516s + 1.494s

9. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m45.613s + 1.591s

10. Luiz Razia Arden 1m45.636s + 1.614s

11. Max Chilton Carlin 1m45.760s + 1.738s

12. Tom Dillmann Rapax 1m45.763s + 1.741s

13. Sergio Canamasas Lazarus 1m45.821s + 1.799s

14. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m45.870s + 1.848s

15. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m45.907s + 1.885s

16. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m45.917s + 1.895s

17. Simon Trummer Arden 1m45.939s + 1.917s

18. Johnny Cecotto Jr Addax 1m46.103s + 2.081s

19. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m46.394s + 2.372s

20. Josef Kral Addax 1m46.637s + 2.615s

21. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m46.651s + 2.629s

22. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m46.849s + 2.827s

23. Julian Leal Trident 1m47.332s + 3.310s

24. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m49.546s + 5.524s

25. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 1m52.356s + 8.334s

26. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus

Johnny Cecotto Jr won the 15th round of the GP2 Series, his second feature race victory of the year, at Hockenheim on Saturday afternoon after a brave gamble on slick tyres on an initially wet track worked a treat. Starting three quarters of an hour after Formula 1 qualifying concluded, the track was damp but not wet enough for a safety car start, so the feature race grid formed up using treaded rubber - all except for Cecotto and Stephane Richelmi, whose Addax and Trident cars started on slicks. That choice turned out to be inspired. The track dried quickly, and although Cecotto dropped as low as 19th from 17th spot on the grid, the race came to him. The star of the show in those early laps, however, was Ocean's Nigel Melker, who entered the back straight on lap one in third and ended it in the lead. He zapped past poleman Giedo van der Garde (Caterham) and Fabio Leimer (Racing Engineering) along the Parabolika sweeper to hit the front, and led by 1.1 seconds by the end of the opening lap. But Leimer, who passed van der Garde on the exit of the Spitzkehre hairpin, was not about to roll over. Two fastest laps in succession put him back on Melker's tail and the Swiss grabbed the lead on lap five. Van der Garde also swept past Melker, to establish himself in second. As early as lap four, however, Cecotto set the fastest sector two time, and by the time he crossed the finish line he had set fastest lap by 2s. His next lap was amazing, passing cars left, right and centre as they struggled with worn wets on the now-dry track. He passed eight cars alone in the second half of lap five, and took the lead as they all dived into the pits for slicks. Cecotto held a 12s lead over Richelmi, but the second-placed man was running the softer of the tyre options, as opposed to Cecotto's medium-compound rubber, and slashed that gap to 6.9s by lap 13, by which time Cecotto had stabilised the margin. The drivers who stopped were now benefiting from their fresh rubber, so much so that when Richelmi pitted for two more fresh softs on lap 23, he rejoined behind Leimer, with Felipe Nasr and van der Garde also jumping ahead. But after a couple more laps, the early stoppers began to hit tyre wear issues, so Richelmi picked off van der Garde and Nasr to score his first-ever GP2 podium. Cecotto pitted a lap later than Richelmi, and despite a sticky left-rear wheel, he rejoined just under a second ahead of Leimer. On fresh rubber, he extended that gap to 9.6s by the finish. "Incredible," said Cecotto. "From the formation laps I said to the team 'we could take slicks but it will be on the limit'. It was amazing at times, the team told me to keep pushing to keep the gap, so I drove 15 qualifying laps." Leimer managed his worn tyres well to stay clear of Richelmi in the closing laps, with Nasr finishing fourth ahead of van der Garde, Melker, points leader Luiz Razia and James Calado. Razia extended his championship lead over Davide Valsecchi to 12 points. Valsecchi raced into the fringe of the points until his tyres went off and he slumped to 13th.
Feature Race Results - 38 laps:


Pos  Driver               Team                   Time/Gap

 1.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax                58m16.075s

 2.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering     + 9.609s

 3.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident               + 14.987s

 4.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                  + 21.459s

 5.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham              + 27.885s

 6.  Nigel Melker         Ocean                 + 29.260s

 7.  Luiz Razia           Arden                 + 29.573s

 8.  James Calado         Lotus                 + 29.950s

 9.  Tom Dillmann         Rapax                 + 31.978s

10.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus                 + 32.373s

11.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport                + 33.798s

12.  Josef Kral           Addax                 + 39.284s

13.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                  + 46.854s

14.  Max Chilton          Carlin                + 51.305s

15.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering    + 55.440s

16.  Simon Trummer        Arden                 + 55.707s

17.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin                + 56.284s

18.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport              + 1m02.119s

19.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni              + 1m08.223s

20.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni              + 1m18.043s

21.  Julian Leal          Trident             + 1m18.945s

22.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus             + 1m20.866s

23.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham            + 1m30.812s

24.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus                 + 1 lap


Retirements:


     Victor Guerin        Ocean                   27 laps

     Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax                   18 laps[/code]




James Calado won the GP2 Series sprint race at Hockenheim on Sunday morning, dominating the event from pole position for Lotus GP.



He defeated Giedo van der Garde of Caterham by 7.9 seconds after leading from lights to flag, a great recovery from a weekend that he began with a 10-place grid penalty for a collision with Max Chilton at Silverstone. It was his second victory of the season, and brings him back into the fringes of the title fight in fifth place.



"It's a good win for me, as I've had some bad luck recently and lost some points," said Calado. "To get back to the front, where I belong, and winning races again is a privilege.



"The car was unbelievable; the speed was unreal. It's good to be back in contention again."



Felipe Nasr finished a distant third for DAMS, holding off the early challenge of Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer. Nasr had grabbed second from van der Garde at Turn 2 on the opening lap, but ran wide at the Mercedes Arena and the Dutchman snatched the position back just as the safety car was released to neutralise the race to recover the conjoined cars of Tom Dillmann and Max Chilton.



They had collided in response to points leader Luiz Razia spinning at the Spitzkehre hairpin. Razia had already run wide at the first corner, losing loads of places from his front-row starting slot, and was challenging Leimer when he got on the kerb and spun all on his own. He recovered to finish 12th.



Title rival Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) fared little better, and also spun at Spitzkehre after the slightest of taps from Jolyon Palmer. He finished out of the points in ninth, but could gain two points if Palmer and Stefano Coletti (who finished seventh and eighth) get pinged for passing Josef Kral under yellow flags.



They were out due to Giancarlo Serenelli's huge shunt at the Agipkurve, from which he staggered away.



Leimer held off a late attack from Esteban Gutierrez (Lotus) to finish fourth. Yesterday's winner Johnny Cecotto Jr was sixth, the Venezuelan snookered into running on softer option tyres as he'd used up all his favoured primes yesterday. He had briefly run fourth, passing Leimer at Turn 2 on lap 11, but Leimer immediately repassed him and Gutierrez further demoted him seconds later.



[code]Sprint Race Results - 27 laps:


Pos  Driver               Team                   Time/Gap

 1.  James Calado         Lotus                40m18.134s

 2.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham               + 7.962s

 3.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                  + 17.509s

 4.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering    + 21.962s

 5.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus                 + 22.353s

 6.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax                 + 33.193s

 7.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport                + 33.235s

 8.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni                + 34.660s

 9.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                  + 38.870s

10.  Nigel Melker         Ocean                 + 41.861s

11.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering    + 42.196s

12.  Luiz Razia           Arden                 + 42.442s

13.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin                + 42.959s

14.  Julian Leal          Trident               + 43.336s

15.  Josef Kral           Addax                 + 43.580s

16.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus               + 44.111s

17.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport                + 46.002s

18.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax                 + 46.683s

19.  Simon Trummer        Arden                 + 47.624s

20.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham              + 56.315s

21.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident             + 1m02.778s

22.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni              + 1m13.439s

23.  Victor Guerin        Ocean                   + 1 lap


Retirements:


     Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus                 18 laps

     Tom Dillmann         Rapax                    0 laps

     Max Chilton          Carlin                   0 laps

Time penalties for Jolyon Palmer and Stefano Coletti have promoted title contender Davide Valsecchi into the points in Sunday's GP2 sprint race, moving him two points closer to championship leader Luiz Razia.

Valsecchi finished ninth, following a spin, but post-race 20-second time penalties for seventh- and eighth-placed Palmer and Coletti, for overtaking Josef Kral in a yellow flag zone for Giancarlo Serenelli's big accident, elevated him to seventh.

This means Valsecchi is 10 points behind Razia with eight races remaining.

In the process, Nigel Melker was promoted to eighth, with Palmer and Coletti relegated to 18th and 19th respectively.

Lineker · July 29, 2012

The next-generation GP3 car had its first test sessions last week, the series has revealed.

Ex-GP2 racer Ben Hanley gave the car a shakedown at Italian circuit Varano, before the car was taken to Magny-Cours for two days of running.

The new car has switched from a turbo to a normally-aspirated engine, and GP2/GP3 technical director Didier Perrin explained that the aim of the first tests was to focus on that area.

"The purpose of the test in Magny-Cours was to develop the strategy for making the engine and gearbox work together," said Perrin. "In this early stage of development, engine and gearbox management is key.

"The next test will focus on the performance of the car, so the next step is to work on the aerodynamic settings. We need to check that the data from the Dallara windtunnel corresponds with live on-track data."

Hanley added that he was impressed with the car, which will be revealed to the public at the Italian Grand Prix-supporting season finale in September.

"There is quite a big power increase with the engine upgrading to a V6," said the Briton. "The sound of the car is a massive improvement; I really noticed it while driving.

"The car is much more demanding to drive, you have to drive on the edge and I think it's a lot more fun to race with the GP3/13. Visually the car is much nicer to look at too. It will definitely raise the level of the series."

McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC award winner Lewis Williamson will return to the GP3 series with Status GP for this weekend's race at Hockenheim.

The Scottish driver, a race winner in the series in 2011, had moved to the Formula Renault 3.5 championship for the 2012 season.

Williamson, who was dropped by Red Bull from its junior programme last month, lost his seat to Antonio Felix da Costa after failing to score a point in the first five races of the year with newcomer team Arden Caterham.

He will make his GP3 return with Status GP in Germany, replacing Kotaro Sakurai, who has experienced sponsorship issues.

"I've known some of the guys at Status GP for a couple of years, and this is a great opportunity," said Williamson.

"I know I've got to put everything I've got into it at Hockenheim this weekend and make sure we do everything right. We just need to progress through free practice, qualifying and then the two races and see what comes of it.

"It's nice to race with Marlon and Alice. I know both of them from our days in Formula Renault UK, so I'm sure we will get along well and work strongly together."

Tio Ellinas set the pace in a disrupted GP3 Series free practice session at Hockenheim on Friday evening.

The 45-minute session had to be halted halfway through due to a power cut. While the problem was fixed, at least the track dried completely and allowed drivers some decent track conditions at the end of a rain-affected day in Germany.

Despite a big lock-up in the stadium section, Marussia Manor driver Ellinas lapped in 1m32.838s, 0.239 seconds faster than MW Arden's David Fumanelli, who missed the previous races due to a family illness at home.

Title challenger Aaro Vainio was third fastest for Lotus, just a thousandth of a second slower than Fumanelli, ahead of Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa. Valencia winner Patric Niederhauser was next up, ahead of Daniel Abt, who survived a lurid slide across the grass entering the stadium section.

Points leader Mitch Evans was only seventh fastest, just ahead of Conor Daly. The latter looked to be on course for the quickest time before being baulked.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m32.838s

2. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m33.077s + 0.239s

3. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m33.078s + 0.240s

4. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m33.090s + 0.252s

5. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m33.218s + 0.380s

6. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m33.352s + 0.514s

7. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m33.490s + 0.652s

8. Conor Daly Lotus 1m33.498s + 0.660s

9. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m33.584s + 0.746s

10. Will Buller Carlin 1m33.690s + 0.852s

11. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m33.707s + 0.869s

12. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m33.743s + 0.905s

13. Lewis Williamson Status 1m33.906s + 1.068s

14. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m33.930s + 1.092s

15. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m34.004s + 1.166s

16. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m34.012s + 1.174s

17. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m34.032s + 1.194s

18. Giovanni Venturini Trident 1m34.102s + 1.264s

19. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m34.230s + 1.392s

20. Vicky Piria Trident 1m34.405s + 1.567s

21. Alice Powell Status 1m34.465s + 1.627s

22. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m35.358s + 2.520s

23. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m35.367s + 2.529s

24. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m41.164s + 8.326s[/code]

Daniel Abt will start the ninth round of the GP3 Series at Hockenheim from pole position.

The German scored his first-ever GP3 pole with two laps good enough for the top spot in his Lotus-run machine, his eventual 1m31.961s coming on his last lap of the session, which coincided with a couple of yellow flags around the circuit. That lap was 0.23 seconds ahead of championship leader Mitch Evans (MW Arden), who ditched his final effort, despite setting the fastest sector one time, due to encountering a spinning Carmen Jorda at the Spitzkehre hairpin on his final lap.

That meant Evans lost the chance to increase his points lead by a further four points for pole, as Abt stole them with his top spot. The second Lotus entry of Conor Daly was third quickest, with practice pacesetter Tio Ellinas fourth fastest for Marussia Manor.

Title contender Aaro Vainio was only fifth fastest, and slowest of the Lotus entries, ahead of Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa.

The driver with the most on his plate in the half-hour session was Dmitry Suranovich, who survived a high-flying moment on the exit of Turn 1 only for his Marussia Manor car to later suddenly judder to a halt in the pitlane exit, causing a late yellow flag at the first corner.

Series returnee Lewis Williamson could only manage 16th in his Status-run car, 1.3s off the pace.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m31.961s

2. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m32.191s + 0.230s

3. Conor Daly Lotus 1m32.267s + 0.306s

4. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m32.381s + 0.420s

5. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m32.551s + 0.590s

6. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m32.564s + 0.603s

7. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m32.658s + 0.697s

8. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m32.689s + 0.728s

9. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m32.773s + 0.812s

10. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m33.010s + 1.049s

11. Giovanni Venturini Trident 1m33.079s + 1.118s

12. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m33.079s + 1.118s

13. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m33.089s + 1.128s

14. Will Buller Carlin 1m33.115s + 1.154s

15. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m33.133s + 1.172s

16. Lewis Williamson Status 1m33.263s + 1.302s

17. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m33.347s + 1.386s

18. Alice Powell Status 1m33.583s + 1.622s

19. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m33.861s + 1.900s

20. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m34.035s + 2.074s

21. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m34.258s + 2.297s

22. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m34.270s + 2.309s

23. Vicky Piria Trident 1m34.756s + 2.795s

24. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m36.073s + 4.112s

Fourth-placed qualifier Tio Ellinas has been slung to the back row of Saturday's GP3 Series grid at Hockenheim, along with Marussia Manor team-mate Dmitry Suranovich. The GP3 technical delegate found in post-qualifying scrutineering that their cars did not comply with Articles 1.3 and 1.4 of the technical regulations in that the orifice in a hydraulic hose relevant to gearchange operation had been enlarged. The stewards have put Ellinas and Suranovich, originally fourth and 19th, to positions 23 and 24 respectively. Daniel Abt will start the race from pole position, while Ellinas' demotion brings title contender Aaro Vainio up to row two and means all three Lotus-run cars are now in the top four, with second-placed Mitch Evans (MW Arden) the only interloper.

Patric Niederhauser won the ninth round of the GP3 Series at Hockenheim for Jenzer Motorsport on Saturday afternoon, following a lengthy red flag and safety car period for rain. After a downpour just before the start, the race began on time behind the safety car, with the field on a mixture of slick and wet tyres. It was clearly wet-weather rubber conditions, so poleman Daniel Abt (Lotus) dived into the pits at the end of lap one, followed by points leader Mitch Evans (MW Arden) and the dozen or so others who had started on slicks. That left Conor Daly's wet-shod Lotus car in the lead, ahead of similarly-tyred Niederhauser and Kevin Ceccon (Ocean), the leaders of the 15 cars that started on wets. But as the rain intensified, the red flag was shown. Following the rain delay, the race was restarted - after another lengthy safety car period - for the remaining seven laps. Although Daly had a 0.5-second lead, Niederhauser quickly latched onto his gearbox and pulled off a superb attacking move, which ended at the Mercedes Arena with him grasping the lead. A succession of fastest laps allowed him to extend a 1.8s lead, which Daly then trimmed to 0.6s by the chequered flag. Ceccon finished a distant third, ahead of Trident's Giovanni Venturini. Matias Laine took fifth, just holding title challenger Aaro Vainio at bay. Evans could only recover to ninth, outside the points, so Vainio closes the gap at the top of the standings to five points. Poleman Abt finished eighth, giving him pole for Sunday's reversed-grid race too.

Feature Race Results - 14 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 45m51.078s

2. Conor Daly Lotus + 0.693s

3. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 5.361s

4. Giovanni Venturini Trident + 8.841s

5. Matias Laine MW Arden + 11.353s

6. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 11.983s

7. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 12.555s

8. Daniel Abt Lotus + 13.415s

9. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 13.983s

10. Will Buller Carlin + 14.205s

11. Tio Ellinas Manor + 18.564s

12. Robert Cregan Ocean + 22.297s

13. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 22.889s

14. Lewis Williamson Status + 24.264s

15. Vicky Piria Trident + 29.081s

16. Alex Brundle Carlin + 29.303s

17. Dmitry Suranovich Manor + 29.696s

18. Marlon Stockinger Status + 31.067s

19. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS + 38.233s

20. Alice Powell Status + 42.018s

21. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 42.719s

22. Carmen Jorda Ocean + 56.621s

Retirements:

Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 9 laps

Fabiano Machado Manor 8 laps[/code]

Kevin Ceccon has lost his third-place finish in the first Hockenheim GP3 race after being given a retrospective drivethrough penalty.

Last year's Auto GP champion, who looked like he had claimed his second GP3 podium with Ocean Racing Technology in Germany, was adjudged to have not had the wheels fitted to his car before the three-minute signal prior to the race.

As the offence was not punished until after the event, Ceccon had 30 seconds added to his race time in lieu of a drivethrough, dropping him from third to 17th.

Carlin's Alex Brundle and Jenzer's Robert Visoiu were given drivethroughs during the race for the same offence, but have both now been excluded for not taking the penalties within the mandatory two laps of notification. They had finished 16th and 21st respectively.

The penalties mean that Giovanni Venturini moves up to third and a podium finish in only his second weekend in GP3. His result is also a maiden GP3 podium for the Trident team.

Championship leader Mitch Evans is elevated from ninth to eighth in the race one results, and therefore gains race two pole. His main title rival Aaro Vainio will start fourth on Sunday.

Patric Niederhauser won race one for Jenzer, just ahead of Lotus's Conor Daly.

Mitch Evans won round 10 of the GP3 Series at Hockenheim in Germany on Sunday morning, but the event was interrupted - and pretty much ruined - by two big accidents that required medical attention for Vicky Piria and Fabiano Machado.

Lotus's Daniel Abt was the early leader, a rocket-like start taking him past poleman Evans (MW Arden), who spent the run to the first corner squeezing Tamas Pal Kiss towards the pitwall to retain second place.

The race was soon interrupted by a lengthy safety car after a lap one crash that involved Piria. Her Trident car was overtaken by Kevin Ceccon's Ocean machine, who was lunging wildly down the inside of the Spitzkehre hairpin after being relegated from third to 17th after yesterday's race for a rules infringement. Apparently distracted by Ceccon, who was going so fast he spun at the exit, she rode over the back of Robert Cregan's Ocean car and was launched into the air, landing just before a second, even harsher impact with Will Buller's Carlin machine, which launched her skyward again.

Piria stopped short of the tyrewall, but needed to be extracted while still in her seat, which took up seven laps of the race under the safety car.

At the restart, Evans wasted little time in lining up a pass on Abt. Evans made a superbly-judged outbraking move at Spitzkehre to grab the lead, taking fastest lap on that tour despite that. He was fastest of all on the next lap too, to extended a 1.1s lead over Abt when the safety car was required again.

This time, Fabiano Machado's Marussia Manor car ran wide at Turn 1 and was launched into the air when he hit a bump in the grass. The severity of the landing caused him such pain that he was unable to get out of the car, and the ambulance was required at the scene.

The race finished under the safety car in the order Evans, Abt, Daly (who passed Pal Kiss at the hairpin on the opening lap), Pal Kiss, Matias Laine, Aaro Vainio, Tio Ellinas and Giovanni Venturini. Evans extends his championship lead, with 121 points against Vainio's 103.

[code]Sprint Race Results - 15 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 30m14.349s

2. Daniel Abt Lotus + 0.428s

3. Conor Daly Lotus + 0.987s

4. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 1.342s

5. Matias Laine MW Arden + 2.737s

6. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 2.917s

7. Tio Ellinas Manor + 3.086s

8. Giovanni Venturini Trident + 4.020s

9. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 5.553s

10. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 6.602s

11. Marlon Stockinger Status + 6.784s

12. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 8.972s

13. Alex Brundle Carlin + 9.201s

14. Dmitry Suranovich Manor + 10.306s

15. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 11.715s

16. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS + 12.218s

Retirements:

Carmen Jorda Ocean 10 laps

Fabiano Machado Manor 8 laps

Robert Cregan Ocean 5 laps

Alice Powell Status 0 laps

Will Buller Carlin 0 laps

Lewis Williamson Status 0 laps

Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 0 laps

Vicky Piria Trident 0 laps

Alex Fontana will return to the GP3 Series with the Jenzer squad at the Hungaroring this weekend.

The Swiss driver is currently racing in Formula 2 and lies ninth in the standings following last weekend's Paul Ricard double-header.

But he is returning to the team with which he made his GP3 debut at Spa last year, taking the seat in the third car that has not been used since Facu Regalia raced it at Silverstone earlier this month.

Regalia, meanwhile, has joined Atech CRS for the Hungaroring event after missing the Hockenheim round last weekend to concentrate on his Auto GP commitments at Curitiba.

Like Jenzer, Atech also ran just two cars at Hockenheim, but will field three in Hungary with Argentinian driver Regalia joining regulars Tamas Pal Kiss and Ethan Ringel.

The announcements mean that Trident is the only team in the field not running all three cars in Hungary.

Lewis Williamson will race in GP3 for Status GP again this weekend after making his return to the category at Hockenheim.

The former Red Bull driver struck a one-off deal for last weekend's German round, having started the season racing in Formula Renault 3.5 for Arden Caterham.

But after a tricky comeback weekend in Germany, Williamson will join the GP3 grid again for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix-supporting races.

"It's good to get back in the car," said Williamson, the 2010 McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award winner. "I raced in Hungary with MW Arden last year and we had a very good pre-season test where we were fastest in some of the sessions.

"I'm refocusing for this weekend and hopefully I'll be able to get more time on the track. I'm going to be making a big push to get onto the podium."

Williamson took a best finish of 13th on his GP3 return last weekend, coming in a rain-affected opening race. He was caught up in a first lap crash in race two.

Former Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld will make his debut in the Porsche Supercup during the German Grand Prix weekend at Hockenheim.

Heidfeld, who finished in fourth place in the Le Mans 24 Hours last month, will join the Formula 1 support series for the 20-22 July event following an invitation from Porsche AG.

The German will drive a 450HP Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car in what will be the seventh round of the championship.

"It is a great new challenge for me to compete against all the Porsche specialists in the Supercup," said Heidfeld. "I'm aware that it won't be easy to match the pace of the frontrunners, and that's exactly what makes this task so exciting.

"In Le Mans I again experienced first-hand just how much the Porsche brand fascinates people. I personally have two Porsche cars in my collection. This race outing will undoubtedly be a very special experience."

Lineker · July 30, 2012

Josef Kral set the fastest time in free practice ahead of qualifying for round 17 of the GP2 Series at the Hungaroring on Friday morning.

Addax racer Kral, who has failed to score a point all season with last year's teams' championship-winner, repeated his feat of setting fastest time in practice from Barcelona back in May. His 1m29.573s was 0.159 seconds faster than Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer, and both of these times were set just after the halfway point of the session.

James Calado, who was the pacesetter until then, was third fastest for Lotus, just over a quarter of a second down on Kral's time. Jolyon Palmer set a last-gasp flyer to leap to fourth in his iSport-run machine.

Caterham's Giedo van der Garde was fifth-fastest, ahead of iSport's Marcus Ericsson. Championship contender Davide Valsecchi, whose early-season form domination has evaporated in recent races with just three point-scoring finishes in the last seven events, was seventh quickest for DAMS.

Victor Guerin was a surprise eighth-fastest for Ocean, but his running was disrupted when his head-protection wrap-around appeared to fall off his car. Recent form men Esteban Gutierrez (Lotus) and Johnny Cecotto Jr (Addax) were ninth and 11th respectively.

Points leader Luiz Razia was only 12th fastest in his Arden machine.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Josef Kral Addax 1m29.573s

2. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m29.732s + 0.159s

3. James Calado Lotus 1m29.837s + 0.264s

4. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m29.916s + 0.343s

5. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m29.943s + 0.370s

6. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m29.961s + 0.388s

7. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m30.053s + 0.480s

8. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m30.093s + 0.520s

9. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m30.131s + 0.558s

10. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m30.226s + 0.653s

11. Johnny Cecotto Jr Addax 1m30.252s + 0.679s

12. Luiz Razia Arden 1m30.367s + 0.794s

13. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m30.373s + 0.800s

14. Max Chilton Carlin 1m30.487s + 0.914s

15. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m30.505s + 0.932s

16. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m30.538s + 0.965s

17. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m30.555s + 0.982s

18. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m30.581s + 1.008s

19. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m30.683s + 1.110s

20. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m30.744s + 1.171s

21. Sergio Canamasas Lazarus 1m30.813s + 1.240s

22. Simon Trummer Arden 1m30.964s + 1.391s

23. Daniel de Jong Rapax 1m31.192s + 1.619s

24. Julian Leal Trident 1m31.707s + 2.134s

25. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 1m32.211s + 2.638s

26. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 1m34.204s + 4.631s[/code]

GP2 Series frontrunner James Calado has been hit by a two-place grid penalty after race stewards ruled he held up a rival driver in free practice on Friday morning at the Hungaroring.

Calado was third fastest in the session, but was judged to have impeded DAMS driver Felipe Nasr at the final corner while beginning his lap, which then went on to be his fastest. So wherever Calado qualifies in this afternoon's session, he will start two places behind it in Saturday's feature race.

On social network Twitter, an angry Calado wrote: "Great practice. But yet again another penalty. Two-place grid drop for so called not letting a driver past in the last corner. I was pushing."

And added: "It's a joke. I was on the grass letting people past in that session with no intention of doing anything wrong.. An absolute disgrace."

He later deleted his comments.

Calado is fifth in points, 55 points behind leader Luiz Razia.

Max Chilton will start the 17th round of the GP2 Series at the Hungaroring from his first-ever pole position in the category.

Chilton's Carlin entry was the very last car to cross the finish line at the end of the 30-minute session, and he was the only man to dip below the 1m29s barrier with a stunning 1m28.980s effort. Before that, he had been languishing outside the top 20 for much of the session.

James Calado (Lotus) was second fastest, just 0.023 seconds slower than Chilton's time, but will start fourth due to his two-place penalty for impeding Felipe Nasr during free practice. Calado set his best time much earlier in the session, just past the halfway mark.

Davide Valsecchi will start second for DAMS, missing out on the four points for pole by just 0.054s. Jolyon Palmer set a stunning middle sector time, but lost out in the closing yards in his iSport machine, his fourth-fastest time becoming third thanks to Calado's penalty.

Title contender Luiz Razia will start fifth for Arden, and will be relieved that Valsecchi did not get pole to erode his 10-point lead in the championship.

Giedo van der Garde was sixth, ahead of Esteban Gutierrez, Fabio Leimer, Marcus Ericsson and early pacesetter Johnny Cecotto Jr.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Max Chilton Carlin 1m28.980s

2. James Calado Lotus 1m29.003s + 0.023s

3. Davide Valsecchi DAMS 1m29.034s + 0.054s

4. Jolyon Palmer iSport 1m29.093s + 0.113s

5. Luiz Razia Arden 1m29.177s + 0.197s

6. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m29.202s + 0.222s

7. Esteban Gutierrez Lotus 1m29.248s + 0.268s

8. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1m29.334s + 0.354s

9. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m29.345s + 0.365s

10. Johnny Cecotto Jr Addax 1m29.367s + 0.387s

11. Josef Kral Addax 1m29.472s + 0.492s

12. Nathanael Berthon Racing Engineering 1m29.496s + 0.516s

13. Felipe Nasr DAMS 1m29.574s + 0.594s

14. Fabio Onidi Coloni 1m29.637s + 0.657s

15. Sergio Canamasas Lazarus 1m29.666s + 0.686s

16. Nigel Melker Ocean 1m29.717s + 0.737s

17. Rio Haryanto Carlin 1m29.786s + 0.806s

18. Victor Guerin Ocean 1m29.786s + 0.806s

19. Stefano Coletti Coloni 1m29.906s + 0.926s

20. Stephane Richelmi Trident 1m30.027s + 1.047s

21. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m30.201s + 1.221s

22. Julian Leal Trident 1m30.202s + 1.222s

23. Ricardo Teixeira Rapax 1m30.475s + 1.495s

24. Simon Trummer Arden 1m30.655s + 1.675s

25. Daniel de Jong Rapax 1m30.930s + 1.950s

26. Giancarlo Serenelli Lazarus 1m33.093s + 4.113s

Max Chilton won his first-ever GP2 Series race for Carlin at the Hungaroring on Saturday, defeating title contender Davide Valsecchi by just over half a second after a pulsating race. Poleman Chilton made a great start to leap into an early lead, having chosen the medium-compound Pirelli tyre, to lead super-soft-shod Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) and Luiz Razia (Arden). Behind them, the Lotus cars suffered contrasting starts: James Calado was slow away, but Esteban Gutierrez charged through from seventh to clip third-placed Razia at the first corner. Razia held third, but Gutierrez soon relented his fourth place to Calado at Turn 1 on lap three, as the Briton made good use of his softer tyres. Gutierrez was very slow for the next tour, and as Giedo van der Garde sought to find a way past, he left the door open for Johnny Cecotto Jr to sneak past him. Doing likewise behind was Felipe Nasr to demote Jolyon Palmer. Cecotto ran sixth for half a lap before his car locked up all its tyres into Turn 1 and slammed into the tyrewall, looking suspiciously like a jammed throttle rather than a driver error. He was unhurt, and marshals managed to shift his car and restack the tyrewall without requiring a safety car. The leaders began to pit on lap 12, with Razia, Calado and van der Garde all pitting together from third, fourth and sixth. Razia and Calado switched their softer tyres for mediums. Leaders Chilton and Valsecchi pitted to react a lap later, Chilton saving time by only changing his medium-compound rears, whereas Valsecchi changed all four super-softs for four fresh mediums. Chilton looked into control until he caught the medium-shod cars that were running a very long first stint. As Gutierrez circulated up front until lap 22, Chilton was getting held up by regular backmarker Julian Leal. That allowed Valsecchi to completely erode his earlier advantage, which had been over 2s, with Razia making it a three-way fight for the race win. Razia made an audacious bid to pass Valsecchi around the outside at Turn 1 on lap 25, with Calado and van der Garde catching the Leal-inspired train too. Leal pitted at the end of lap 25, with the top five now covered by just over a second. Once in clear air, however, Chilton pulled out 1.4s over Valsecchi in just one lap. But Valsecchi kept him on his toes in the closing stages, poised to pounce if any mistakes were made, getting the gap down to 0.8s, 0.6s and then 0.3s over the last few laps. With one eye on the title, Valsecchi was never going to do anything silly, and settled for second. He gained five points on Razia as a result, the latter's lead now down to just five. Razia was third, well clear of Calado and van der Garde. Palmer and Nathanael Berthon were sixth and seventh. The best battle behind the leaders at the end of the race was for eighth, and reversed-grid pole. This became over seventh when Josef Kral's car suddenly slowed with five laps to go, but the man who seemed most likely to get it, Nasr, went off at Turn 1 with just a handful of laps to go. Erstwhile leader Gutierrez switched to super-softs, but his long first stint hadn't worked for him, and compounded it by locking-up badly as he rejoined. The Mexican then ran wide with seven laps to go, dropping outside the points, but the attrition in front of him handed him the prized eighth spot, and with it tomorrow's reversed-grid pole.
Feature Race Results - 37 laps:


Pos  Driver               Team                    Time/Gap

 1.  Max Chilton          Carlin                59m02.965s

 2.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                    + 0.628s

 3.  Luiz Razia           Arden                   + 1.538s

 4.  James Calado         Lotus                   + 4.090s

 5.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham                + 8.070s

 6.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport                 + 10.805s

 7.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering     + 16.236s

 8.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus                  + 16.826s

 9.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering     + 17.794s

10.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni                 + 19.176s

11.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni                 + 28.116s

12.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin                 + 34.742s

13.  Simon Trummer        Arden                  + 35.069s

14.  Nigel Melker         Ocean                  + 35.458s

15.  Daniel de Jong       Rapax                  + 37.861s

16.  Julian Leal          Trident                + 44.080s

17.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident                + 44.267s

18.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax                  + 59.576s

19.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport               + 1m04.364s

20.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus              + 1m44.003s

21.  Victor Guerin        Ocean                    + 1 lap

22.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus                  + 1 lap

23.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham                 + 1 lap


Retirements:


     Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax                    34 laps

     Josef Kral           Addax                    33 laps

     Felipe Nasr          DAMS                      4 laps[/code]




Esteban Gutierrez scored a dominant GP2 Series sprint race victory at the Hungaroring on Sunday morning, his third win of the season for Lotus.



Starting from pole position, the Mexican controlled the race from the front. Although fellow front-row starter Nathanael Berthon (Racing Engineering) kept him honest in the early stages, Gutierrez always had pace in reserve. He proved this on lap 15, by pulling out 1.5s on a single tour over Berthon - his laptime over 2s faster than the third-placed man, Giedo van der Garde (Caterham).



Gutierrez won by 3.5s, as title rivals Luiz Razia (Arden) and Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) drove superbly to gain places to maximise their points hauls. Razia passed Jolyon Palmer (iSport) for fourth around the outside of Turn 2 on the opening lap, and pounced down the inside of van der Garde for third at Turn 1 on lap 20.



Valsecchi, who started a position further back than his rival, took his time in getting stuck into those ahead. He passed Palmer for fifth when the Briton outbraked himself attacking van der Garde, scrabbling around the outside of the iSport driver impressively at Turn 2.



Valsecchi repeated this move a lap later on van der Garde, with Palmer following suit. They finished fourth and fifth respectively.



Having started on the super-soft option tyre, van der Garde was gripless in the closing stages and slumped to 10th.



James Calado (Lotus) salvaged sixth after a terrible start, having spent most of the race locked in the battle with the super-soft-shod feature race winner Max Chilton, who slithered to an eventual 11th. Chilton's team-mate Rio Haryanto was seventh, after a clever move on the battling Stefano Coletti and Felipe Nasr gained him two places in one go.



But the drive of the race came from Nasr, who started 25th after suffering brake failure yesterday, as he stormed through to eighth with some stunning overtaking moves.



In the championship, Razia ekes out his points lead over Valsecchi to seven, but it remains finely poised with six races remaining.



[code]Sprint Race Results - 28 laps:


Pos  Driver               Team                    Time/Gap

 1.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus                 43m58.301s

 2.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering      + 3.565s

 3.  Luiz Razia           Arden                  + 15.733s

 4.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                   + 29.352s

 5.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport                 + 30.237s

 6.  James Calado         Lotus                  + 30.493s

 7.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin                 + 32.336s

 8.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                   + 33.578s

 9.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni                 + 39.475s

10.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham               + 41.928s

11.  Max Chilton          Carlin                 + 44.868s

12.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus                + 45.399s

13.  Simon Trummer        Arden                  + 45.417s

14.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering     + 46.221s

15.  Julian Leal          Trident                + 46.937s

16.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham               + 49.087s

17.  Josef Kral           Addax                  + 50.058s

18.  Nigel Melker         Ocean                  + 51.753s

19.  Daniel de Jong       Rapax                  + 54.037s

20.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax                  + 54.870s

21.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident                + 55.887s

22.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus              + 1m04.537s

23.  Victor Guerin        Ocean                + 1m09.900s

24.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni                   + 1 lap


Retirements:


     Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax                    10 laps

     Marcus Ericsson      iSport                     1 lap

Lineker · July 30, 2012

GP3 Series title challenger Aaro Vainio set the pace in the 45-minute free practice session at the Hungaroring on Friday morning in his Lotus entry.

Vainio, who arrived in Hungary 18 points behind leader Mitch Evans of MW Arden, knows he needs a big weekend to start closing the gap with only six races remaining. First on his agenda will be getting the four points for pole position on Saturday morning.

Despite the early start to the GP3 weekend, the air temperature was already well over 20C at the 0830 local start time. Evans was the first of the big guns to go to the top of the times when he emerged with half of the session gone, setting laps of 1m39.655s then 1m38.402s.

Silverstone winner Antonio Felix da Costa then went fastest for Carlin on 1m38.136s, but Vainio soon took top spot with 1m37.698s. With a minute of the session remaining, Vainio unleashed his 1m37.396s to extend his advantage to 0.423 seconds.

Da Costa stayed second, ahead of the second Lotus machine of Conor Daly, who was over half a second off the fastest time. Marlon Stockinger was fourth quickest for Status GP, with Will Buller grabbing fifth with a late lap for Carlin.

Evans ended the session down in sixth, 0.775s down on Vainio. Hockenheim pole-winner Daniel Abt (Lotus) was seventh, ahead of Tio Ellinas, Tamas Pal Kiss and Robert Visoiu.

Last weekend's wounded racers, who both required hospital check-ups after crashes at Hockenheim, were both back in action. Vicky Piria was 22nd fastest, but spun into the gravel at Turn 6 on her ninth lap, while Fabiano Machado was 20th.

Practice

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m37.396s

2. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m37.819s + 0.423s

3. Conor Daly Lotus 1m37.934s + 0.538s

4. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m37.973s + 0.577s

5. Will Buller Carlin 1m38.135s + 0.739s

6. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m38.171s + 0.775s

7. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m38.235s + 0.839s

8. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m38.352s + 0.956s

9. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m38.393s + 0.997s

10. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m38.397s + 1.001s

11. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m38.516s + 1.120s

12. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m38.517s + 1.121s

13. Lewis Williamson Status 1m38.673s + 1.277s

14. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m38.830s + 1.434s

15. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m38.902s + 1.506s

16. Alex Fontana Jenzer 1m39.208s + 1.812s

17. Giovanni Venturini Trident 1m39.265s + 1.869s

18. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m39.276s + 1.880s

19. Facu Regalia Atech CRS 1m39.715s + 2.319s

20. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m39.986s + 2.590s

21. Alice Powell Status 1m40.657s + 3.261s

22. Vicky Piria Trident 1m41.463s + 4.067s

23. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m41.785s + 4.389s

24. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m41.787s + 4.391s

25. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m41.981s + 4.585s

26. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m42.825s + 5.429s[/code]

Aaro Vainio secured his second pole position of the 2012 GP3 Series at the Hungaroring on Saturday morning, and has closed the gap to points leader Mitch Evans as a result.

Lotus racer Vainio set two laps good enough for pole position, his initial 1m36.133s later topped by a last effort of 1m36.052s. That gave him a pole position advantage of 0.249 seconds over Antonio Felix da Costa's Carlin car, and the four points Vainio gains means he is now 14 points behind Evans (MW Arden), who could only qualify third, 0.329s off the Finn's pace.

Marlon Stockinger will start fourth for Status, ahead of Arden's David Fumanelli. Lotus duo Daniel Abt and Conor Daly were next up, the latter furious at being held up by tailender Carmen Jorda at the final corner.

In fact there was a raft of incidents that the stewards will probably investigate ahead of the 11th round of the championship, mainly concerning drivers slowing into the final corner to get a good run to open their laps and baulking those who were already on a quick one.

[code]Qualifying

Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m36.052s

2. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m36.301s + 0.249s

3. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m36.381s + 0.329s

4. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m36.478s + 0.426s

5. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m36.541s + 0.489s

6. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m36.569s + 0.517s

7. Conor Daly Lotus 1m36.783s + 0.731s

8. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m36.807s + 0.755s

9. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m36.866s + 0.814s

10. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m36.867s + 0.815s

11. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m36.967s + 0.915s

12. Will Buller Carlin 1m37.065s + 1.013s

13. Lewis Williamson Status 1m37.066s + 1.014s

14. Giovanni Venturini Trident 1m37.264s + 1.212s

15. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m37.282s + 1.230s

16. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m37.612s + 1.560s

17. Facu Regalia Atech CRS 1m37.625s + 1.573s

18. Alex Fontana Jenzer 1m37.661s + 1.609s

19. Alice Powell Status 1m37.730s + 1.678s

20. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m37.882s + 1.830s

21. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m38.528s + 2.476s

22. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m38.560s + 2.508s

23. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m38.671s + 2.619s

24. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m38.706s + 2.654s

25. Vicky Piria Trident 1m38.974s + 2.922s

26. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m41.809s + 5.757s

Antonio Felix da Costa led round 11 of the GP3 Series from start to finish at the Hungaroring on Saturday evening to score his second victory of the season, and the third of his career, for Carlin. There was huge drama on the opening half lap of the race, as poleman Aaro Vainio (Lotus) made a terrible start, while his title rival Mitch Evans (MW Arden) made a blinder from the second row. Despite weaving at Evans, which put him on the grass, Vainio could do nothing to stop the Kiwi coming past him, who then took the fight to leader da Costa. Although the Portuguese man had made a decent getaway, Evans tried to go around his outside at Turn 1, only to run wide and allow Daniel Abt and Vainio back past him. But Evans wasn't done yet, and passed both Lotus cars at Turn 3, before Abt lunged down his inside to grab second position back a few corners later. As da Costa pulled well clear of the battling Abt and Evans, Vainio lost fourth to Kevin Ceccon on lap two. Abt survived a lurid slide at the exit of the high-speed turn 4 while keeping Evans at arm's length, and they filled the podium positions behind da Costa. That extended Evans's championship lead over Vainio, who will be gutted with the result as he'd previously topped both practice and qualifying. Ceccon held off Vainio for fourth, with Conor Daly, Matias Laine, David Fumanelli, Marlon Stockinger and Lewis Williamson rounding out the point scorers. Da Costa was never challenged up front, apart from the first corner side-by-side with Evans, and even found time to set a new lap record on the way to the Carlin squad's second victory of the day. He won by 4.4s.

Race One Results - 16 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 26m33.107s

2. Daniel Abt Lotus + 4.410s

3. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 4.747s

4. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 8.674s

5. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 9.681s

6. Conor Daly Lotus + 10.404s

7. Matias Laine MW Arden + 11.025s

8. David Fumanelli MW Arden + 12.928s

9. Marlon Stockinger Status + 13.338s

10. Lewis Williamson Status + 14.257s

11. Giovanni Venturini Trident + 17.448s

12. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 18.531s

13. Tio Ellinas Manor + 20.984s

14. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 21.482s

15. Alex Brundle Carlin + 23.338s

16. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 24.770s

17. Alex Fontana Jenzer + 28.400s

18. Facu Regalia Atech CRS + 32.508s

19. Alice Powell Status + 32.988s

20. Vicky Piria Trident + 41.678s

21. Robert Cregan Ocean + 44.872s

22. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS + 48.844s

23. Will Buller Carlin + 1m30.888s

24. Carmen Jorda Ocean + 1 lap

Retirements:

Dmitry Suranovich Manor 3 laps

Fabiano Machado Manor 0 laps[/code]

Antonio Felix da Costa completed an incredible double victory in the GP3 Series at the Hungaroring after a sensational victory in the second race.

The Portuguese driver followed up his win from yesterday by giving Carlin its fourth international single-seater success of the weekend, after taking a perfectly-timed pitstop for slicks on a drying track.

Morning thunderstorms meant the track was wet at the start, but sunny conditions at start-time meant it was always going to dry throughout the 16-lap race. Most of the cars started on wets, but nine of those towards the rear of the field took a slick-tyre gamble right from the off.

The action started thick and fast for the MW Arden team, as Matias Laine beat pole-sitting team-mate David Fumanelli away from the line, while its third car of points leader Mitch Evans spun at Turn 1, having been clipped by Daniel Abt off the start and possibly suffering a punctured his left-rear tyre.

Fumanelli spun into the barrier out of second place exiting Turn 2, leaving Laine clear of Lotus duo Conor Daly and Aaro Vainio. Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) had been fourth, but local hero Tamas Pal Kiss overtook him for fourth place on lap two.

Da Costa ran seventh early on, but quickly passed Ceccon and Abt, and was running fifth when he pitted for slicks on the half-distance lap. This was in reaction to those who started on slicks setting faster laptimes, and with no more rain on the horizon, pitstops came thick and fast.

The leaders remained locked-into their wet-tyre strategy, however, with Laine repeatedly defending from Daly. Whenever the American challenged him, Laine simply pushed him wide and off the track. With three laps to go, Vainio passed Daly for second around the outside of Turn 1, and was poised to take a huge chunk out of Evans's points lead, as the Kiwi's early switch to slicks was hampered by a costly spin at the chicane. He finished 21st, but set fastest lap on the final tour.

As the race entered its closing laps, the slick-shod cars were lapping over 10s per lap faster than those on their well-hammered wets, and da Costa was the first of the slick runners on track. He carved his way past Abt, Daly, Vainio and Laine in quick succession, and pulled away to win by over 11s.

Patric Niederhauser pulled a forceful last-lap pass on Kiss for second with just a handful of corners remaining, a just reward for his gamble of starting on slicks. Alex Brundle was an excellent fourth, ahead of Tio Ellinas - both of whom started on slicks.

Lewis Williamson was a pitter, and finished sixth, ahead of wet-devotees Laine and Vainio, the latter taking just one point out of Evans's points lead when it could have been so much more.

Evans now leads on 136 points to Vainio's 118, with da Costa firmly in the frame on 102 with four races remaining.

[code]Race Two Results - 16 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap

1. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 30m36.220s

2. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer + 11.929s

3. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS + 12.289s

4. Alex Brundle Carlin + 13.440s

5. Tio Ellinas Manor + 18.987s

6. Lewis Williamson Status + 19.505s

7. Matias Laine MW Arden + 21.609s

8. Aaro Vainio Lotus + 22.052s

9. Kevin Ceccon Ocean + 25.392s

10. Conor Daly Lotus + 29.260s

11. Daniel Abt Lotus + 37.146s

12. Will Buller Carlin + 37.150s

13. Marlon Stockinger Status + 38.616s

14. Robert Cregan Ocean + 39.674s

15. Alex Fontana Jenzer + 48.584s

16. Dmitry Suranovich Manor + 50.483s

17. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS + 59.255s

18. Facu Regalia Atech CRS + 1m03.947s

19. Vicky Piria Trident + 1m12.457s

20. Alice Powell Status + 1m22.641s

21. Mitch Evans MW Arden + 1m31.650s

22. Robert Visoiu Jenzer + 1 lap

Retirements:

Carmen Jorda Ocean 13 laps

Giovanni Venturini Trident 12 laps

David Fumanelli MW Arden 0 laps

Lineker · September 17, 2012

Fallen behind in here <_<

But yes, Chris Evans buys the Dunlop Bridge

Lineker · September 28, 2012

Double Paralympic champion and ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Zanardi says he may consider a return to motor racing.

The 45-year-old, who lost both legs in a 2001 crash, won two gold medals in handcycling at the London Paralympic Games.

His former team-mate, US motor racing team owner Jimmy Vasser, said before the Games that he would offer Zanardi a drive in the Indy 500 if he won gold.

Zanardi says that he still has "enough talent" to drive in the showpiece race.

In an interview with BBC Radio 5 live, Zanardi says that he is considering his next move after taking gold in the handcycling road race and H4 handcycling time trial in London.

"If something comes [along] and it looks to me to be a pure passion, I think in spite of my age I have enough talent to succeed," Zanardi said.

"I don't know if Jimmy is going to come back and put pressure on me and [try to] light that fire.

"To do it well - it's not a question of talent, but of preparation.

"I have too much respect for the drivers currently competing in the Indycar [series] to think that I can step in the car and win the most prestigious race in the world."

Zanardi had both legs amputated following a Cart accident in Germany 11 years ago.

He had won two Cart titles in the US before his accident and returned to racing two years after the crash, competing in the FIA World Touring Car Championship for the BMW team from 2003 to 2009.

Vasser, who owns the Indycar KV Racing Technology team, was a team-mate of the Italian driver in the US before his accident.

After claiming gold in London, Zanardi revealed that his old friend had offered him the chance to return to driving once again - and the Italian says that he has since thought about the idea of a return.

"It would take a lot of preparation.

"Right now my life is in Italy. I don't know if I'm really prepared to move back to the United States, because this is what it would take, at least for a great period of time, in order to prepare things right.

"If I did all of this, I believe that not only do I have enough talent, but actually driving around on an oval would be much easier than doing some of the things I had to do to win a World Touring Car Championship race."

You can listen to the full interview by clicking here

Lineker · February 23, 2013

Huge crash at Daytona. Spectators injured.

General Motorsport Thread

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