GP2 Series

GP2 Bahrain: Haryanto claims his maiden win for Campos

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Rio Haryanto claimed his maiden GP2 victory on his 70th race start in the category in the GP2 sprint race in Bahrain.

The Campos Racing man started the race down in seventh on the reversed grid after a controlled drive to second in Saturday’s feature race.

The Indonesian made a great start to move up to third on the opening lap and was instantly on the back of Mitch Evans, who he passed at turn one on lap four.

He then set about chasing down reverse-grid pole man Julian Leal. Like Evans, Leal was quickly caught by Haryanto and he once again made use of the DRS zone on the start/finish straight to pass the Columbian into turn one on lap eight.

Feature race winner Stoffel Vandoorne once again made good use of his tyres to follow Haryanto through the field to finish second.

The Belgian started the race down in eighth but managed his tyres well to preserve their life for later in the race.

When others began to lose grip Vandoorne began to progress forward, he made his way up to second, passing team-mate Nobuharu Matsushita in the process, but couldn’t close the gap to Haryanto who had also managed his tyres well.

An elated Haryanto celebrates his win. (Credit: Sam Bloxham/GP2 Media Service)

An elated Haryanto celebrates his win. (Credit: Sam Bloxham/GP2 Media Service)


Nathanael Berthon had an up and down race. The Frenchman started second on the grid but fell back dramatically at the start to fall to eighth.

But like Haryanto and Vandoorne, Berthon held off with his tyres until late on when others began to struggle for grip.

This allowed Berthon to close in on and pass Alexander Rossi for third on the final lap.

Rossi may have missed out on a second podium of the weekend but was easily able to maintain the big gap to reverse-grid pole man Leal.

Leal, who dropped down the order early on, was able to pass the struggling Matsushita on the final lap.

Robert Visoiu also struggled for grip with his tyres but was able to come out on top of a battle for seventh with Andre Negrao.

Jordan King finished just outside of the points in ninth ahead of Arthur Pic, who started at the back of the grid after his retirement in the feature race.

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