Mitch Evans wins thrilling 200th GP2 race
CLICK: Full feature race 1 results from Hockenheim
Starting from 15th place on the grid, Mitch Evans went on to take a brilliant victory in the 200th GP2 Series race at Hockenheim on Saturday afternoon after managing to make an early pit stop work in enabled the Russian Time driver to wrest the lead from ART's Stoffel Vandoorne, who had taken command of the race off the line from championship leader Jolyon Palmer in the DAMS.
Palmer had started from pole position ahead of fellow front row man Vandoorne, but when the lights went out after a ten minute delay caused by the red flag in F1 qualifying for Lewis Hamilton's accident, it was the Belgian who had by far the better launch to take the lead into turn 1. Palmer meanwhile had his hands full fending off a boisterous Stefano Coletti in a sustained battle for second place that lasted the whole of the first lap.
There was contact at the turn 6 hairpin when Trident's Sergio Canamasas tapped the back of Conor Daly's car and sent the Venezuela GP Lazarus into a spin; but it was a different incident at the exit of turn 4 on lap 2 that brought out a brief safety car, after Artem Markelov's Russian Time was left stranded on the grass after contact with Jon Lancaster in the Hilmer Motorsport #12.
Vandoorne easily held onto his lead at the restart with Palmer now on safer footing over Coletti. Felipe Nasr (Carlin) maintained fourth ahead of Arthur Pic (Campos Racing), while Johnny Cecotto Jr. lost out in a battle for sixth place to a masterful overtaking move by Raffaele Marciello (Racing Engineering) who had gambled on starting on the option tyre. Unfortunately Alexander Rossi's first race for Campos Racing came to an early end after he found himself sandwiched between the cars of Evans and Rapax's Simon Trummer into the hairpin on lap 5 which ended up breaking the American's steering and forcing him to retire; Rossi's replacement at Caterham, Tom Dillmann, also suffered a nightmare when his engine stalled on the grid and he was dropped to the back of the field.
Worries about the searing heat at Hockenheim this weekend meant that most of the leaders other than Marciello and Pic had decided to start on the harder prime tyres. A number of drivers further back started on the options and hence needed early pit stops, the first being Carlin's Julian Leal followed by DAMS' Stephane Richelmi and Hilmer's Daniel Abt. By contrast, both Pic and Marciello stayed out until lap 11 before coming in for their mandatory stops. Incredibly, both cars stalled and it took an agonisingly prolonged time before they could be refired and sent on their way, Marciello now ahead of Pic but both men's races now effectively ruined.
Evans was in from sixth place at the end of lap 13 and had no such issues, rejoining in 14th just behind Richelmi who was the first car on track to have pitted; Evans was able to put his fresh tyres to good use a few laps later with a move that caught Richelmi completely by surprise. Behind this battle, Leal - the first man to pit - already seemed to be struggling for rear grip on his new primes, a worrying portent for everyone else: subsequent earlier-than expected stops for Daly and Cecotto on lap 21 for options with 17 laps remaining seemed to confirm that there were indeed potential longevity issues for a number of drivers.
At the front, Vandoorne had carefully pulled out a three second lead over Palmer who had a similar margin over Coletti. Nasr, Rapax's Simon Trummer and Arden's Rene Binder were in pursuit, with Marco Sorensen in seventh the last man on track still to pit, but by the end of lap 24 Palmer was forced to concede to the inevitable and dived into pit lane for a new set of options. He was joined by Coletti and Binder and Vandoorne and Nasr were in next time by, but it was a lap too late for the Belgian who narrowly lost his race lead to Mitch Evans as he exited pit lane after a slightly sluggish tyre change.
Once all the tyre strategy cards had been played, Evans' lead over Vandoorne was 1.5s with Palmer in third ahead of Richelmi, Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, Cecotto, Nathanael Berthon and Coletti in eighth. But the racing was far from done, as everyone was now struggling desperately to make their final set of tyres - whether option or prime - last the remaining dozen laps of the race without falling off the proverbial cliff in the process. That meant that the racing became increasingly desperate, lairy and downright thrilling as the laps counted down to the finish.
The wildest battle was over sixth place between Quaife-Hobbs, Coletti, Nasr, Berthon and Cecotto which saw various cars briefly flying off into the run-offs under the pressure. Cecotto, Coletti and Nasr won that one while Quaife-Hobbs and Berthon burned out their tyres and were easy prey for Trummer to breeze his way past them. Trummer picked up another place when Cecotto went off into the gravel under pressure from Nasr, but the Venezuelan was able to rejoin ahead of Berthon to keep seventh place - meaning that Berthon picked up eighth and pole position for Sunday's sprint race under the reverse grid positions.
Amazingly, though, the top four seemed to have been on top of their tyre degradation, and Evans - against expectations - was able to nurse the Russian Time car across the line in first place to score his second series win having managed to hold off Vandoorne for the latter half of the race. Palmer had been dropped in the final laps, but was still comfortably ahead of Coletti who survived the brilliant battle for best of the rest in fourth ahead of Nasr and Trummer.
It had certainly been an exciting race, and a fitting way to celebrate the 200th outing for the feeder series which launched in 2005, with Nico Rosberg winning the first GP2 title at the end of the season. With Rosberg leading the F1 word championship and claiming pole for Sunday's German Grand Prix, Saturday at Hockenheim had only confirmed GP2's world-leading motorsports credentials for another 200 races to come.
The 27-lap sprint race 2 will be held on Sunday morning at 10.35am (9.35am BST) and will be shown live in the UK on Sky Sports F1.
