Auto GP

Venturini Returns To Winning Ways In Oschersleben Race 2

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Giovanni Venturini scored his second victory in Auto GP, and his first since his debut race at Monza, in the second race at Oschersleben in Germany.

Venturini began the race from pole position, though the race began with three laps behind the safety car. After the get-go he had to hold off Daniel De Jong, who had passed Pasquale di Sabatino for second place.

The Dutchman remained within a second of the race leader until two laps from the end when he made a mistake and dropped to seventh. This allowed Venturini to secure the win for his Durango team.

“I was looking forward to another win,” he said. “The safety car helped me at the start, that's sure, but at the restart I immediately realized that the car was very good for this damp conditions, and that I had a good chance.

“It wasn't easy anyway, because I had a really fierce fight with de Jong for the whole race. He had better traction and stability in the quick corners, but despite this I could control him. I want to say thanks to Durango, we worked a lot together to achieve this”.

Race 1 winner Sergei Afanasiev inherited second place, ahead of Adrien Tambay. Tambay had earlier tried to take second from De Jong around the outside of Turn 1, but De Jong closed the door, they made contact and Tambay spun.

Di Sabatino held on to fourth place, holding off both Kevin Korjus and Kevin Ceccon. Samuele Buttarelli took the final point in eighth behind De Jong. The Lazarus pairing of Fabrizio Crestani and Fabio Onidi finished a lap down in ninth and tenth, after the team opted to fit slicks to both drivers as the track dried. Unfortunately for them the conditions only worsened. Onidi had earlier suffered a puncture while trying to defend fourth place from Tambay.

Ceccon's sixth place was enough for the 17-year-old to take the lead of the standings in the absence of Luca Filippi, who was racing in GP2.  He is two points ahead of his fellow Italian, with Afanasiev moving up into third place ahead of Venturini and Tambay.

Race results – 17 laps:

Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1 Giovanni Venturini Griffitz Durango 30:25.268
2 Sergei Afanasiev Dams 1.183
3 Adrien Tambay Campos Racing 3.376
4 Pasquale Di Sabatino TP Formula 3.817
5 Kevin Korjus Dams 5.913
6 Kevin Ceccon Ombra Racing 6.099
7 Daniel De Jong MP Motorsport 11.165
8 Samuele Buttarelli TP Formula 30.388
9 Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus +1 lap
10 Fabio Onidi Lazarus +1 lap
11 Adrian Campos Jr Campos Racing +2 lap
12 Francesco Dracone Ombra Racing +5 lap
13 Giuseppe Cipriani Griffitz Durango +7 lap
Ret Bruno Mendez Campos Racing 2 laps

Drivers' standings after 5 of 7 rounds:

1. Kevin Ceccon, 100 points
2. Luca Filippi, 98
3. Sergei Afanasiev, 83
4. Giovanni Venturini, 75
5. Adrien Tambay, 68
6. Samuele Buttarelli, 63

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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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