GP2 SeriesOpen Wheel

Gutierrez Dominates Valencia Sprint Race To Score First GP2 Victory

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Esteban Gutierrez took his maiden GP2 victory with a dominant win in the sprint race at Valencia.

The reigning GP3 Series champion started second on the grid, and had to hold onto it at the start under pressure from Luis Razia, behind polesitter Josef Kral who retained his lead.

Championship contenders Sam Bird and Romain Grosjean made contact at Turn 3, forcing Bird to limp back to the pits. Grosjean meanwhile spun at Turn 5, with Rodolfo Gonzalez and Charles Pic left with nowhere to go.

This brought out the safety car for one lap, and after the restart Kral made a mistake under braking which allowed both Gutierrez and Razia through. From there Gutierrez stretched his lead, winning by 13 seconds.

“It’s a very good result for us, a very good step from what we did at the previous events,” said Gutierrez. “Of course it’s always important to be very progressive and to be very constant, and we struggled a bit with this in the first few events: now in Valencia it was our main goal to be constant, and to do a step.

“We finally achieved it, and this is something that personally and inside the team makes us very motivated, because the way it’s working is going in the right direction: this is very important for us, to keep some confidence. But we have to be realistic: it’s only one win, it’s only one event, and we have to keep getting points and to improve.”

Giedo van der Garde and Dani Clos soon got past Kral, and van der Garde chased Razia home, but the Brazilian was able to hang onto second place just ahead of the Dutchman.

Clos lost fourth place to Davide Valsecchi in the closing stages, finishing just ahead of Michael Herck, who took the final point in sixth. Jules Bianchi came from the back of the grid to seventh, just outside the points.

Grosjean holds onto his championship lead despite spinning out, one point ahead of van der Garde. Valsecchi lies three points further behind, with Bird three points behind him and Pic another three behind. The next round takes place at Silverstone in two weeks time.

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1 E. Gutiérrez Lotus ART 43:34.905
2 L. Razia Caterham Team AirAsia 12.995
3 G. Van Der Garde Barwa Addax Team 13.842
4 D. Valsecchi Caterham Team AirAsia 26.633
5 D. Clos Racing Engineering 30.130
6 M. Herck Scuderia Coloni 30.374
7 J. Bianchi Lotus ART 34.651
8 K. Mirocha Ocean Racing Technology 34.677
9 J. Leal Rapax 36.728
10 P. Varhaug DAMS 37.615
11 M. Ericsson iSport International 40.932
12 S. Bird iSport International 42.599
13 C. Vietoris Racing Engineering 44.840
14 F. Leimer Rapax 46.014
15 L. Filippi Super Nova Racing 46.777
16 F. Fauzy Super Nova Racing 57.433
17 J. Cecotto Ocean Racing Technology 68.309
18 Á. Parente Carlin 71.936
19 S. Coletti Trident Racing 21 laps
20 K. Ceccon Scuderia Coloni 21 laps
Ret Josef Kral Arden International 14 laps
Ret Jolyon Palmer Arden International 14 laps
Ret Max Chilton Carlin 3 laps
Ret Romain Grosjean Dams 0 laps
Ret Rodolfo Gonzalez Trident Racing 0 laps
Ret Charles Pic Barwa Addax Team 0 laps
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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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