Davide Valsecchi continued his winning ways in the GP2 Series at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) on Friday.
Racing at “The Home of Motorsport in the Middle East” for the second successive week, Valsecchi captured his third win in a row by taking the feature race of 2012’s third round in spectacular fashion.
The Italian had earlier claimed a double during round two held in Sakhir last weekend in support of this year’s Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. He has now made it three straight and has the chance to make it a perfect four-for-four in Bahrain’s back-to-back events on Saturday (April 28).
Meanwhile, Stephen Kellogg made his own fine start to the weekend by capturing pole position for race one in the Bahrain-based BIC 2,000cc Challenge.
The 2,000cc Challenge is holding its seventh and final round of the 2011/2012 season, and Kellogg will be hoping to register a winning finish to a campaign that sees him headed towards his first-ever series title.
Action continues Saturday in both GP2 and the 2,000cc Challenge. All are welcome to attend the day’s events at BIC. Tickets are available at the gate. Children aged 12 years and below can get in for free.
Davide Valsecchi began from where he left off last week after emerging triumphant in a thrilling GP2 feature race.
Valsecchi started the day’s 32-lap main event on the front row alongside Dutch pole-sitter Giedo van der Garde, who did well to hold on to the lead in the early stages. But on the ninth lap, Valsecchi took control.
The DAMS Team ace gave up the advantage momentarily when he pitted, but as the rest of the field made their mandatory one stop, Valsecchi reclaimed the advantage and never wavered on his way to the chequered flag.
Valsecchi registered a winning mark of 57m 35.088s. He was 7.711s clear of Swiss runner-up Fabio Leimer of Racing Engineering, while van der Garde, of Caterham Racing, could only recover enough to settle for third, 14.824s behind Valsecchi.
Brazilian Luiz Razia of Arden International (+24.142s) finished fourth, while Carlin pairing Max Chilton (+24.705s) of Great Britain and Rio Haryanto (+40.965s) of Indonesia were fifth and sixth, respectively.
Valsecchi’s Brazilian teammate Felipe Nasr (+45.772s) finished in seventh place while Swede Marcus Ericsson of iSport International rounded out the top eight.
During qualifying, van der Garde had claimed pole position for the weekend’s feature race after marginally outpacing Valsecchi by 0.145s.
In the GP2 practice held earlier in the day, Chilton set the session’s fastest time of 1m 42.136s. He was just 0.300s ahead of Valsecchi, while Razia finished 0.555s behind. Haryanto (+0.657s) was fourth, van der Garde (+0.747s) fifth and Leimer (+0.811s) sixth.
Following Friday’s events, Valsecchi improved to 97 points as he strengthened his hold on first place on the Drivers’ Championship standings. Razia went to 69 points in second and Chilton moved to joint-third with Esteban Gutierrez of Lotus GP on 45 points apiece.
DAMS continued to lead the Teams’ Championship with 125 points.
Round three’s 23-lap Sprint Race takes place at 2pm on Saturday.