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Leimer triumphs in second race

Fabio Leimer bounced back from having to start last for the first GP2 race of the weekend by winning the second race at Barcelona

The Rapax driver had climbed from 26th to ninth in Saturday's race, and he inherited eighth place and therefore pole position for race two when Romain Grosjean was excluded after his car failed a ride height test.

Leimer then made a good start while fellow front row man Jules Bianchi (ART) dropped back. Bianchi did not even make Turn 1 as he moved across on Addax's Giedo van der Garde, leading to a spectacular collision that forced both to retire.

After the inevitable safety car period, Leimer set about slowly easing away from Racing Engineering driver Dani Clos in second. By the end, the Swiss driver's lead was up to 10 seconds.

Clos had a lonely race to second, while iSport's Marcus Ericsson just held on to take third from a charging Davide Valsecchi (AirAsia). The Italian had been under pressure from Trident's Stefano Coletti in the early part of the race, but his car came good in the closing stages, enabling him to snatch fourth from Sam Bird (iSport) three laps from the end before hunting down Ericsson.

Bird had to settle for fifth, while Fairuz Fauzy took the final point for Super Nova after Coletti and Arden's Josef Kral collided at Turn 1 on the penultimate lap.

There were late race heroics from Grosjean after he made a quiet start to the race from the back of the grid. He was only running 19th with seven laps to go, but he then took advantage of looking after his tyres to storm through the field. He was ninth by the end, and it could have been eighth were it not for some fierce defensive driving from his DAMS team-mate Pal Varhaug.

Results - 26 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                   Time/Gap
 1.  Fabio Leimer         Rapax                45m26.885s
 2.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering    + 10.190s
 3.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport                + 20.711s
 4.  Davide Valsecchi     AirAsia               + 20.926s
 5.  Sam Bird             iSport                + 27.339s
 6.  Fairuz Fauzy         Super Nova            + 38.974s
 7.  Alvaro Parente       Racing Engineering    + 40.280s
 8.  Pal Varhaug          DAMS                  + 41.855s
 9.  Romain Grosjean      DAMS                  + 41.925s
10.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Trident               + 51.503s
11.  Max Chilton          Carlin                + 52.553s
12.  Esteban Gutierrez    ART                 + 1m02.219s
13.  Johnny Cecotto       Ocean               + 1m03.298s
14.  Julian Leal          Rapax               + 1m03.416s
15.  Kevin Ceccon         Coloni              + 1m03.604s
16.  Kevin Mirocha        Ocean               + 1m04.895s
17.  Jolyon Palmer        Arden               + 1m05.099s
18.  Mikhail Aleshin      Carlin              + 1m19.938s
19.  Charles Pic          Addax               + 1m26.905s

Retirements:

     Stefano Coletti      Trident                 24 laps
     Josef Kral           Arden                   24 laps
     Luiz Razia           AirAsia                 22 laps
     Luca Filippi         Super Nova              21 laps
     Michael Herck        Coloni                  12 laps
     Jules Bianchi        ART                      0 laps
     Giedo van der Garde  Addax                    0 laps

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