Campana beats Quaife-Hobbs to win Auto GP thriller at Marrakech

From fifth on the grid, Super Nova racer Quaife-Hobbs made an early pit call on lap five. After a string of fast lap times, the Briton arrived on Campana's gearbox as the Italian exited the pitlane from his own stop on lap 12.

Campana had spent the first half of the race scrapping with early leader Pal Varhaug, but the Norwegian lost a probable win after stalling following his change to fresh rubber.

The Virtuosi UK racer's misfortune created a sensational climax to the race as Campana and Quaife-Hobbs raced wheel-to-wheel on several occasions. The Reggio Emilia driver covered the inside line into each of the Circuit Moulay El Hassan's chicanes, and benefited from having some remaining power-boost, to take victory by 0.186s.

"During the last laps my rear tyres were completely finished," said Campana. "I was having wheelspin even on the straight. That made it possible for Adrian to come alongside me several times. I am sure it was a good race to watch, but it wasn't so fun to drive!"

Quaife-Hobbs felt he could have overtaken Campana during the pitstop phase if it hadn't been for the combination of a slight delay in his pit release and a battle with a stubborn Antonio Spavone.

The Euronova Racing driver was running ahead of Quaife-Hobbs in third on lap 10, as he had yet to make a stop.

The Italian maintained his position by cutting a chicane, and later received a drive-through penalty for subsequently failing to relinquish his place.

"I chose to start the race on very old tyres," said Quaife-Hobbs, "and I lost five seconds to Campana before my stop. Once I changed to new softs, I knew I really had to push. I had also used all my push-to-pass at the beginning. There was one time when I did manage to get onto Sergio's inside, but he had some power-boost to spare and was able to get ahead. I was trying as hard as I could without risking crashing."

Spavone's team-mate Sergey Sirotkin had a very slow getaway from pole position, and dropped to ninth. The Russian staged an excellent recovery to finish sixth behind Zele Racing' Giacomo Ricci.

Former GP2 racer Ricci survived being squeezed into the wall at the start and his super-soft compound tyres dropping off considerably to salvage fifth place.

Kiwi Chris van der Drift entered the meeting tied for fourth position in the drivers' standings with his MP Motorsport team-mate Daniel de Jong. A solid fourth position in race one moved van der Drift clear of the Dutchman, who took seventh.

Results - 19 laps:

Pos Driver                Team             Time/Gap
 1. Sergio Campana        MLR 71           29m34.199s
 2. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs   Super Nova       + 0.186s
 3. Pal Varhaug           Virtuosi UK      + 5.951s
 4. Chris van der Drift   Manor MP         + 36.677s
 5. Giacomo Ricci         Zele Racing      + 38.902s
 6. Sergey Sirotkin       Euronova         + 40.169s
 7. Daniel de Jong        Manor MP         + 59.207s
 8. Antonio Spavone       Euronova         + 59.324s
 9. Yann Cunha            Ombra Racing     + 1m07.767s
10. Francesco Dracone     Virtuosi UK      + 1m08.838s
11. Giancarlo Serenelli   Ombra Racing     + 1m08.888s
12. Michele La Rosa       MLR 71           + 1m16.185s
13. Maxim Snegirev        Campos Racing    + 1 lap

Did not finish:

   Victor Guerin          Super Nova        3 laps
   Facu Regalia          Campos             2 laps
   Giuseppe Cipriani      Campos            1 lap