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Ericsson win tainted by Kral crash

Marcus Ericsson kept his head under intense pressure to secure his first-ever GP2 win in today's sprint race in Valencia

The Swede took the lead at the start by beating pole-sitter Michael Herck into the first corner, but faced a determined challenge from Giedo van der Garde over the last two laps. Despite van der Garde's apparent speed advantage, Ericsson did just enough to keep him at bay.

While the win was a welcome change of form for the Super Nova team after a tough start to the season, there is also concern within the squad after Ericsson's team-mate Josef Kral was taken to hospital following a huge accident on lap three.

The Czech driver ran into the back of Arden's Rodolfo Gonzalez and was launched skyward before landing on his gearbox and slamming into the Turn 17 barriers at high speed. He is reported to be conscious and complaining of pain in his back and right arm.

The accident prompted several laps behind the safety car, which eventually led to the race being flagged several laps before schedule due to time limitations.

Herck held on to third, although he needed to shove Pastor Maldonado aside on the run to the finish line in order to do it, while Charles Pic and Davide Valsecchi scored the final points.

Sergio Perez endured another disastrous race; the Mexican being one of several victims of opening lap damage when he was hit by Alberto Valerio. He lost a lap but found himself out of sequence behind the safety car and spent the middle part of the race running fourth on the road ahead of title rival Maldonado.

Perez had just enough time to produce the fastest lap of the race - by a full second - before he was dealt a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags.

Pos  Driver               Team                  Time/Gap
 1.  Marcus Ericsson      Super Nova          45m33.442s
 2.  Giedo van der Garde  Barwa Addax           + 0.883s
 3.  Michael Herck        DPR                   + 5.120s
 4.  Pastor Maldonado     Rapax                 + 5.292s
 5.  Charles Pic          Arden                 + 9.233s
 6.  Davide Valsecchi     iSport               + 17.778s
 7.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering   + 18.315s
 8.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                 + 18.910s
 9.  Vladimir Arabadjiev  Coloni               + 21.318s
10.  Sam Bird             ART                  + 23.831s
11.  Max Chilton          Ocean                + 25.997s
12.  Oliver Turvey        iSport               + 30.387s
13.  Ho-Pin Tung          DAMS                 + 32.713s
14.  Johnny Cecotto       Trident              + 33.394s
15.  Adrian Zaugg         Trident                + 1 lap
16.  Sergio Perez         Barwa Addax            + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Luiz Razia           Rapax               15 laps
     Rodolfo Gonzalez     Arden               1 lap
     Josef Kral           Super Nova          1 lap
     Jules Bianchi        ART                 0 laps
     Alberto Valerio      Coloni              0 laps
     Christian Vietoris   Racing Engineering  0 laps
     Fabio Leimer         Ocean               0 laps
     Giacomo Ricci        DPR                 0 laps

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