Jolyon Palmer has won the GP2 feature race under the lights of Singapore denying team mate Felipe Nasr a vital win in his championship hopes.
While the final classification may seem pretty conclusive, it was actually Nasr who got the better start as the red lights went out and was in the lead by turn one. On the other hand, Palmer couldn’t have had it worse – a poor getaway from pole saw his team mate get past as well as Fabio Leimer and Stephane Richelmi. However, Richelmi got unstuck as he tried to pass Leimer, running wide he was soon punted down the order by both James Calado and Palmer.
With Nasr setting numerous fastest laps as he tried to make a gap to second place before his first pit stop, but he needn’t have bothered trying too hard as Palmer was right on the tail of Leimer and – after a couple of laps of battling – the Brit got through and into second place. Another man who sliced through Leimer’s defence was ART Grand Prix’s Calado, his tyres giving him the edge just before the mandatory pit stops for the GP2 feature races.
Once the pit stops had come and gone, it was all eyes to the front as Palmer set fastest lap after fastest lap to cut Nasr’s strong lead down to nothing in a space of only eight laps. From that point onwards, and with Nasr locking up under the pressure, it was clear this race could only go one way and Palmer crossed the line with 12 seconds over his team mate, clocking up his second GP2 win of the season in the process.
The battle for third place was equally as tense, but it was clear that points leader Leimer was struggling massively with his tyres and Calado found it easy to get past and add another podium finish onto his tally. Richelmi then rubbed salt on the Swiss driver’s wounds as he got through to fourth place with Leimer languishing in fifth.
Sixth place was Tom Dillmann, just ahead of Marcus Ericsson as well as Russian Time team mate Sam Bird who moved up two places having started tenth. Ninth was Jon Lancaster and Dani Clos rounded out the top ten.
