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Pic Beats Van Der Garde To Win In Addax 1-2

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Charles Pic got the better of Addax teammate Giedo van der Garde during the pitstops to win the GP2 feature race at Barcelona.

The frontrunners remained in their grid positions off the start, with polesitter Van der Garde and fellow front-row starter Sam Bird (iSport) leading the field away. Pic held third, with Romain Grosjean just behind for DAMS.

However an incident in the middle of the pack at the start saw the safety car deployed. Luiz Razia was fighting with Jules Bianchi when the Brazlian made contact with Luca Filippi that pitched the Super Nova driver into the pit wall.

After the restart the front four held position until the pitstops. Bird was the first to stop, with Pic coming in a lap later. The Frenchman rejoined ahead of the Briton and then took the lead when van der Garde pitted from the lead on the following lap.

He held onto the lead for the remainder of the race (which included a second safety car period for a clash between Esteban Gutierrez and Michael Herck) to beat van der Garde to the checkered flag by 1.4 seconds. Bird finished third to seal his third podium from as many races, with Grosjean a quiet fourth. However, Grosjean was later disqualified after his car was found to not comply with the technical regulations.

Davide Valsecchi had dropped from fifth to eighth but decided to stop earlier than his rivals and climbed back to fifth as a result, ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Dani Clos.

Stefano Coletti had been the other driver to get ahead of Valsecchi early on, and had been set for eighth in the closing stages. However he dropped backwards in the final laps, first being passed by Bianchi, who recovered from a troubled start to finish eighth. Fabio Leimer started last but left his pitstop late and was able to use his fresher tyres to move up from 15th to 9th by the finish. The Swiss Rapax driver took tenth from Josef Kral on the penultimate lap before then taking ninth from Coletti. Kral was then able to regain tenth place on the final lap by getting past Coletti.

Feature race results after 34 laps:

 Pos. Driver Team Time/Gap
1. Charles Pic Barwa Addax Team 1:00:32.817
2. Giedo van der Garde Barwa Addax Team +1.444
3. Sam Bird iSport International +2.773
4. Davide Valsecchi Team AirAsia +10.011
5. Marcus Ericsson iSport International +10.518
6. Dani Clos Racing Engineering +16.534
7. Jules Bianchi Lotus ART +16.979
8. Fabio Leimer Rapax +17.419
9. Josef Kral Arden International +21.726
10. Stefano Coletti Trident Racing +24.492
11. Alvaro Parente Racing Engineering +24.715
12. Max Chilton Carlin +25.349
13. Fairuz Fauzy Super Nova Racing +25.841
14. Johnny Cecotto Ocean Racing Technology +28.469
15. Pal Varhaug Dams +35.890
16. Mikhaïl Aleshin Carlin +37.837
17. Julian Leal Rapax +38.135
18. Kevin Ceccon Scuderia Coloni +39.033
19. Rodolfo Gonzalez Trident Racing +41.999
20. Kevin Mirocha Ocean Racing Technology + 1 lap
Ret.  Michael Herck Scuderia Coloni 21 laps
Ret.  Esteban Gutierrez Lotus ART 21 laps
Ret.  Luiz Razia Team AirAsia 11 laps
Ret. Luca Filippi Super Nova Racing 0 laps
DSQ. Romain Grosjean Dams  
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About author
Peter joined the TCF team in September 2010 and covers GP2 and GP3 along with WTCC and Formula Two. You can find him on twitter at @PeteAllen_
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