Andi Zuber has put his early season demons to rest with a magnificent win at Silverstone in this afternoon’s GP2 Series race. The iSport International driver had to pull out all the stops to keep a rampant Mike Conway behind him, and the local hero delighted his fans with his first ever Series podium. Kazuki Nakajima was an overjoyed third, also taking his first GP2 podium.
Race Report: With the race distance reduced to 35 laps following an aborted start for the stalled Andy Soucek, the action got underway without the drama which had so affected last weekend’s Saturday race in Magny-Cours. Although Andi made the slightly poorer start of the front row sitters, he nevertheless held his lead from Mike into the first corner, with Lucas di Grassi, Timo Glock and Adam Carroll in hot pursuit.
Andi and Mike started to pull out a gap from Lucas, who was already apparently suffering with an illhandling car. Timo was all over the Brazilian’s rear wing and on the fourth lap pushed his way past at the Farm chicane, with Adam seizing the opportunity and sliding through for fourth. Five laps later Kazuki was in from sixth for an early pitstop, with the aim being to get him out from Lucas’ dirty air and into some clear space to set some quick laps. The plan worked a treat, for when Lucas pitted on lap 11, he emerged behind the Dams driver.
The leaders pitted one lap apart, with Mike the first to dive in on lap 13, and Andi on lap 14. They emerged in the order in which they had entered, but with Mike’s tyres already up to race temperature he was all over Andi’s rear wing. The Briton just couldn’t find a way past however, and the pair were never separated by more than 2.5 seconds for the remaining 20 laps.
All this left Adam in the lead, and when Timo pulled into the pits and stopped with apparent alternator issues, Adam knew he had third place in the bag. The Ulsterman was just a touch too hot on his pit entry however, and as the pit lane speed limiter failed to engage first tim, he broke the speed limit and lost all chance of a podium with the resultant drive through penalty.
This left the order with Andi up front, being hounded by Mike, Kazuki in third, Lucas fourth, Luca Filippi a brilliant fifth after a plucky race from 11th on the grid, Adam now sixth, Pastor Maldonado seventh after an even more impressive run from 19th and Roldan Rodriguez eighth. And that’s how it ended. Despite Timo taking the fastest lap of the race, the point will go to his team-mate Andi as the German was not classified in the final results.
1st Andi Zuber: iSport International. 54:21.118
Two points for pole position, one point for fastest lap, and then points for the race win: it’s just perfect for me. The team did a great job, like always, and the race was quite tough because Mike was quite tough and he pushed me a lot, especially after the pitstop. I’m very happy!
2nd Mike Conway: Super Nova International. +1.815
I have to give a big thank you to the team for doing such a good job, as always, and I know our luck hasn’t been too good so far, but hopefully this is a turning point for us.
3rd Kazuki Nakajima: Dams +16.916
I’ve had a lot of bad luck earlier in the season: I think we were in a similar position to these guys! So, for me, this is really the start of the season.
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