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Muller wins eventful Valencia race

Jenzer Motorsport's Nico Muller won an eventful GP3 Series sprint race in Valencia on Sunday morning

The Swiss driver beat polesitter James Jakes off the line to lead into the first corner and was never troubled thereafter, eventually winning by 3.2s.

But it could have been a different story had the race been a few laps longer, as Atech's Roberto Merhi, who moved into second midway through the race, had reeled off a string of fastest laps to reduce what had been a leading margin of nearly six seconds.

Jakes, meanwhile, initially fell to third at the start when he went to the outside at turn one and allowed Rio Haryanto past, but reclaimed the spot from the Indonesian a few laps later - only to lose it again to Merhi.

Haryanto held on to fourth, but the scrap for the final points places was chaotic.

Points leader Esteban Gutierrez was removed from contention early on when he was hit from behind by Robert Wickens, the Canadian receiving a drive-through penalty that also cost him a likely points finish. Wickens was later involved in another incident with Status team-mate Ivan Lukashevich which was due to be looked at by the stewards after the race.

That left Tobias Hegewald and Stefano Coletti in the points, but a scrap between the pair ended with Hegewald in the barriers and Coletti losing fifth to Adrian Quaife-Hobbs.

Coletti then had to deal with a recovering Gutierrez for the final laps, but managed to hold the Mexican off to secure the final point.


Pos  Driver                Team             Time/Gap
 1.  Nico Muller           Jenzer         28m01.567s
 2.  Roberto Merhi         Atech CRS    +     3.208s
 3.  James Jakes           Manor        +     6.641s
 4.  Rio Haryanto          Manor        +    15.423s
 5.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs   Manor        +    17.054s
 6.  Stefano Coletti       Tech 1       +    18.172s
 7.  Esteban Gutierrez     ART          +    18.779s
 8.  Pal Varhaug           Jenzer       +    24.997s
 9.  Pablo Sanchez Lopez   Addax        +    26.149s
10.  Mirko Bortolotti      Addax        +    29.817s
11.  Pedro Nunes           ART          +    31.100s
12.  Daniel Morad          Status       +    31.455s
13.  Miki Monras           MW Arden     +    31.598s
14.  Michael Christensen   MW Arden     +    35.706s
15.  Nigel Melker          RSC Mucke    +    37.647s
16.  Robert Wickens        Status       +    39.002s
17.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Tech 1       +    39.118s
18.  Felipe Guimaraes      Addax        +    41.936s
19.  Oliver Oakes          Atech CRS    +    45.869s
20.  Doru Sechelariu       Tech 1       +    46.030s
21.  Leonardo Cordeiro     MW Arden     +    47.519s
22.  Vittorio Ghirelli     Atech CRS    +    48.557s
23.  Dean Smith            Carlin       +    54.615s
24.  Renger van der Zande  RSC Mucke    +  1m06.160s
25.  Ivan Lukashevich      Status       +  1m06.493s
26.  Josef Newgarden       Carlin       +  1m14.601s
27.  Simon Trummer         Jenzer       +     1 laps
28.  Lucas Foresti         Carlin       +     1 laps
29.  Tobias Hegewald       RSC Mucke    +     2 laps

Retirements:

     Alexander Rossi       ART                3 laps

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