Maldonado wins Silverstone sprint
Pastor Maldonado survived a last-corner restart to win this morning's GP2 Series sprint race at Silverstone for ART
Maldonado had led the race from the start after beating polesitter Andi Zuber (Fisichella) into the first corner, and looked to have the race under control until the safety car was brought out after Racing Engineering's Dani Clos spun to a halt in the middle of the circuit with two laps to go.
After two laps under yellows while the stricken Racing Engineering car was removed, the safety car peeled ino the pits at the end of the final lap, setting up a sprint from the last corner down to the finish line.
Maldonado was followed across the line by Zuber, with Karun Chandhok picking up Ocean Racing Technology's first-ever podium finish in third place. Romain Grosjean was fourth for Addax, and Nico Hulkenberg (ART) and Sergio Perez (Arden) rounded out the points.
Compared with yesterday's eventful feature race the sprint was a relatively sedate affair. One of the pre-race favourites was knocked out early when Lucas di Grassi stalled on the grid and dropped right to the back of the field, losing too much time to mount any sort of recovery.
Elsewhere, Edoardo Mortara put on an entertaining display of overtaking in the midfield, including one memorable move that got him past Javier Villa and Davide Valsecchi in one go, but his race ended in a plume of smoke when his engine let go with three laps remaining.
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1. Pastor Maldonado ART 35m27.955s
2. Andreas Zuber Fisichella + 0.618s
3. Karun Chandhok Ocean + 3.417s
4. Romain Grosjean Addax + 3.447s
5. Nico Hulkenberg ART + 3.856s
6. Sergio Perez Arden + 3.936s
7. Alberto Valerio Piquet + 4.316s
8. Michael Herck DPR + 4.524s
9. Roldan Rodriguez Piquet + 5.030s
10. Vitaly Petrov Addax + 5.463s
11. Alvaro Parente Ocean + 5.916s
12. Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS + 6.553s
13. Giedo van der Garde iSport + 7.188s
14. Davide Valsecchi Durango + 8.339s
15. Javier Villa Super Nova + 15.244s
16. Luca Filippi Super Nova + 34.869s
17. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS + 36.225s
18. Ricardo Teixeira Trident + 36.688s
19. Lucas di Grassi Racing Engineering + 1 lap
20. Davide Rigon Trident + 1 lap
Retirements:
Edoardo Mortara Arden 19 laps
Dani Clos Racing Engineering 19 laps
Nelson Panciatici Durango 17 laps
Luiz Razia Fisichella 11 laps
Diego Nunes iSport 0 laps
Giacomo Ricci DPR 0 laps
Share Or Save This Story
The Indy 500 poleman who didn't live to raceday
Fast Failures: American heartbreak at the Indianapolis 500
Indy Lights champion Spencer Pigot gets three race IndyCar deal
Silverstone F2: Tsunoda handed sprint win after Prema's drivers clash
Ticktum: Silverstone Formula 2 radio messages "taken out of context"
Silverstone F2: Ilott dominates feature race to take points lead
From the archive: When Niki Lauda led an F1 driver strike in 1982
'Antonelli and Sinner, Sinner and Antonelli' - Italy should handle its latest sporting hero with care
Sky Sports extends F1 live broadcast contract
The intrigue sparked by Red Bull's Miami sidepod design
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments