Spa GP2: Sam Bird back in title hunt after victory

The Briton won the feature race for the Russian Time team by seven seconds over Marcus Ericsson.

ART's James Calado grabbed the lead off the line, making a great getaway on his soft-compound slick tyres from third on a slippery circuit.

But Bird pounced on the exit of La Source, retaking the lead and never looking back.

Bird pitted on lap 14 for a second set of prime tyres, and rejoined well clear of a fierce battle for second between DAMS driver Ericsson and Caterham's Alexander Rossi.

Ericsson had slipped to fifth on the opening lap, but took full advantage when Carlin team-mates Jolyon Palmer and Felipe Nasr collided at La Source on lap five.

Palmer spun around the bows of aggressor Nasr, who had pulled off a similar move on Ericsson the lap before, but this one failed dismally and the Brazilian was out on the spot.

Ericsson passed Rossi for fourth at Les Combes on lap seven, and then ran a longer stint than his rivals that paid off handsomely. He jumped Fabio Leimer during the pitstop cycle and picked up another spot when Calado suffered a disastrously slow stop.

Rossi, who also passed Leimer in the pit cycle, caught Ericsson but just could not find a way past him and settled for third.

Leimer pulled a brave move on Calado into Les Combes in the early stages and finished fourth, ahead of a charging Tom Dillmann, who bounced back from a disappointing qualifying.

Julian Leal was sixth, followed by Stephane Richelmi, while Calado recovered to eighth, which means reversed-grid pole for Sunday's race.

Bird is now 24 points behind series leader Stefano Coletti, who failed to score in 13th.

Coletti was in the mix for points but suffered a scare when Dani Clos drove into the back of him at Raidillon, for which he was penalised.

Leimer has closed to within seven points of Nasr's second place in the title race.

The race was interrupted by a safety car after Rio Haryanto clipped Daniel de Jong at Eau Rouge, the resultant puncture sending de Jong into the wall at high speed. He was unhurt.

Results - 25 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time/Gap 
 1.  Sam Bird            Russian Time       52m55.642s
 2.  Marcus Ericsson     DAMS                  +7.001s
 3.  Alexander Rossi     Caterham              +8.242s
 4.  Fabio Leimer        Racing Engineering   +13.950s
 5.  Tom Dillmann        Russian Time         +15.353s
 6.  Julian Leal         Racing Engineering   +18.643s
 7.  Stephane Richelmi   DAMS                 +26.086s
 8.  James Calado        ART                  +27.559s
 9.  Robin Frijns        Hilmer               +28.425s
10.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Hilmer               +30.497s
11.  Mitch Evans         Arden                +33.190s
12.  Simon Trummer       Rapax                +33.341s
13.  Stefano Coletti     Rapax                +33.837s
14.  Johnny Cecotto Jr   Arden                +48.970s
15.  Jolyon Palmer       Carlin               +49.347s
16.  Daniel Abt          ART                  +52.471s
17.  Jake Rosenzweig     Addax                +57.102s
18.  Vittorio Ghirelli   Lazarus              +57.982s
19.  Rio Haryanto        Addax              +1m03.628s
20.  Dani Clos           MP                 +1m20.316s
21.  Ricardo Teixeira    Trident            +1m27.365s
22.  Nathanael Berthon   Trident            +1m28.885s

Retirements:

        Sergio Canamasas    Caterham        19 laps
        Felipe Nasr         Carlin           5 laps
        Daniel de Jong      MP               3 laps
        Rene Binder         Lazarus          0 laps