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Adrian Quaife-Hobbs takes maiden GP3 win in Valencia

Adrian Quaife-Hobbs scored his first GP3 points of the season by taking a comfortable victory on the streets of Valencia

The Manor driver made a rocket start from third on the grid to pass both front row cars of Lewis Williamson and Dean Smith within seconds of the lights going out.

From there he controlled the race with relative ease, managing the gap and gradually pulling away from his pursuers.

Smith took advantage of a poor start from polesitter Williamson to take second, which he held relatively comfortably until the final lap.

But his Addax car slowed dramatically at the end of the race, and by the time he crawled out of the final corner he had dropped to fifth.

Smith's problems gave Williamson second place, after he had been pushed hard by MW Arden team-mate Mitch Evans. The Kiwi gave him a particularly hard time in the middle of the race, before their scrap settled down towards the end.

Gabby Chaves (Addax) took advantage of Smith's woes to take fourth on the run to the flag, while Status' Alexander Sims starred on his way from 16th to sixth.

The Briton had been given a 10-place grid penalty for colliding with Chaves in qualifying, but he put in a determined charge to get back to the place he was originally meant to start from.

He was 11th by the end of the first lap, and had broken into the top eight by lap four. He then survived Tom Dillmann (Addax) riding up the back of his car as he passed the Frenchman, and set about hunting the ART duo of James Calado and Valtteri Bottas.

The pass on Calado for seventh was straightforward at Turn 2, but Bottas put up a serious fight. Sims eventually came out on top after all three had charged down the first of the long straights side-by-side on the penultimate lap.

Results - 14 laps:

Pos  Driver                  Team          Time/Gap
 1.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs     Manor       28m49.603s
 2.  Lewis Williamson        MW Arden      + 6.547s
 3.  Mitch Evans             MW Arden      + 7.406s
 4.  Gabby Chaves            Addax        + 11.403s
 5.  Dean Smith              Addax        + 14.315s
 6.  Alexander Sims          Status       + 17.022s
 7.  Valtteri Bottas         ART          + 18.818s
 8.  James Calado            ART          + 19.339s
 9.  Nick Yelloly            Atech CRS    + 26.837s
10.  Leonardo Cordeiro       Carlin       + 28.342s
11.  Zoel Amberg             Atech CRS    + 36.012s
12.  Conor Daly              Carlin       + 37.231s
13.  Vittorio Ghirelli       Jenzer       + 37.241s
14.  Marlon Stockinger       Atech CRS    + 39.355s
15.  Daniel Morad            Carlin       + 40.131s
16.  Tamas Pal Kiss          Tech 1       + 41.619s
17.  Matias Laine            Manor        + 42.700s
18.  Luciano Bacheta         RSC Mucke    + 48.068s
19.  Rio Haryanto            Manor        + 58.934s
20.  Tom Dillmann            Addax      + 1m12.164s

Retirements:

     Nigel Melker            RSC Mucke       8 laps
     Aaro Vainio             Tech 1          3 laps
     Pedro Nunes             ART             3 laps
     Nico Muller             Jenzer          1 laps
     Michael Christensen     RSC Mucke       1 laps
     Thomas Hylkema          Tech 1          0 laps
     Ivan Lukashevich        Status          0 laps
     Antonio Felix da Costa  Status          0 laps
     Simon Trummer           MW Arden        0 laps
     Maxim Zimin             Jenzer          0 laps

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