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Fabio Leimer dominates opening race of Abu Dhabi GP2 event

Fabio Leimer claimed his maiden GP2 feature race victory with a dominant drive in Abu Dhabi

The Swiss driver, who switched from Rapax to Racing Engineering for this weekend, converted pole position into the lead at the start, establishing an advantage of almost two seconds by the end of the first lap.

From there, Leimer, who has two GP2 sprint race wins to his name, expertly controlled the gap to nearest rival Luiz Razia (AirAsia). Razia's only hope of attacking came around the mandatory stops, but Leimer was able to wait until two laps after the Brazilian had pitted before pulling in himself, maintaining his lead in the process.

He re-emerged second behind Addax's Jolyon Palmer and retook the lead when the British driver pitted.

After the pitstops, Leimer held the gap to Razia at around the five second mark, stretching his advantage to 6.9s in the final laps.

Palmer, who started fifth, held on to take third place, comfortably his best result in GP2, after holding off pressure from iSport's Marcus Ericsson in the closing stages. Palmer had climbed to third at the start after Rapax driver Dani Clos, who had to leave room for the fast-starting Razia on the inside of the corner, clipped Josef Kral (Aden), who was attempting to go around the outside of both, into a spin at Turn 1.

With Clos retiring after recovering to the pits and Kral out of contention, Coloni driver Kevin Ceccon finished a strong fifth ahead of best rookie Tom Dillmann (iSport). He narrowly held off the challenge of fellow GP2 newcomer Antonio Felix da Costa, driving for Ocean Racing Technology.

GP3 runner-up James Calado claimed the all-important eighth position, earning reversed grid pole for tomorrow's sprint race. The ART driver had to fight hard to earn it, climbing from 11th on the grid to pass Stefano Coletti (Coloni) for eighth with nine laps to go and keeping Nathanael Berthon (Racing Engineering) at arm's length in the closing stages.

Esteban Gutierrez (ART), favourite heading into the weekend, finished 21st after a lengthy pitstop to replace his rear wing, which sustained damage when he was hit by Coletti on the opening lap, while Max Chilton (Carlin) crashed out of seventh early on.

Results - 31 laps:

Pos  Driver                  Team                   Time/Gap
 1.  Fabio Leimer            Racing Engineering   58m53.563s
 2.  Luiz Razia              AirAsia                + 6.911s
 3.  Jolyon Palmer           Addax                 + 28.708s
 4.  Marcus Ericsson         iSport                + 29.812s
 5.  Kevin Ceccon            Coloni                + 36.619s
 6.  Tom Dillmann            iSport                + 41.518s
 7.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Ocean                 + 42.496s
 8.  James Calado            ART                   + 45.669s
 9.  Nathanael Berthon       Racing Engineering    + 51.345s
10.  Stefano Coletti         Coloni              + 1m02.481s
11.  Giacomo Ricci           Super Nova          + 1m08.632s
12.  Rio Haryanto            DAMS                + 1m13.503s
13.  Alexander Rossi         AirAsia             + 1m16.572s
14.  Nicolas Marroc          Ocean               + 1m28.973s
15.  Nigel Melker            DAMS                + 1m30.328s
16.  Julian Leal             Trident             + 1m33.669s
17.  Mihai Marinescu         Rapax               + 1m35.344s
18.  Fabio Onidi             Super Nova          + 1m43.541s
19.  Stephane Richelmi       Trident                 + 1 lap
20.  Josef Kral              Arden                   + 1 lap
21.  Esteban Gutierrez       ART                     + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Jake Rosenzweig         Addax                   23 laps
     Simon Trummer           Arden                   23 laps
     Jan Charouz             Carlin                  18 laps
     Max Chilton             Carlin                   2 laps
     Dani Clos               Rapax                     1 lap

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