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Silverstone GP2: Sergey Sirotkin dominates at Silverstone

Sergey Sirotkin converted pole position into his maiden GP2 victory in the Silverstone feature race

The Russian lost the lead at the start when third-placed Richie Stanaway made a lighting getaway to dive between the pole man and second-place starter Stoffel Vandoorne off the line.

The safety car was deployed moments later after Artem Markelov spun and was collected by Nathanael Berthon.

At the restart, Stanaway either tried to back up the field too much or failed to realise that passing is allowed from the safety-car restart line rather than the start/finish line, with Sirotkin getting ahead through Club.

This forced Stanway wide and also allowed Nobuharu Matsushita, who had passed ART Grand Prix team-mate Vandoorne on the run to the first corner after the Belgian lost momentum when he was clipped by Stanaway, to get past into second place.

Sirotkin was never again threatened, initially pulling a small gap over Matsushita before the Japanese retired with a suspected engine problem.

This promoted Stanaway to second, but he soon came under pressure from Alexander Rossi, who had passed Vandoorne coming onto the National Straight on lap 16.

Rossi then overtook Stanaway around the outside at Brooklands, with Vandoorne doing the same shortly afterwards.

By now, the top two were settled as Sirotkin had checked out and Rossi was far enough up the road to ensure he stayed ahead of any of those who had made an early pitstop after starting on the mediums.

Vandoorne was the best-placed of those who ran that strategy, emerging from the pits behind Hilmer Motorsport's Nick Yelloly and Racing Engineering's Jordan King.

King put in a superb defensive drive on tyres that were past their best, but could not resist indefinitely and Vandoorne was able to get ahead with six laps to go.

DAMS drivers Pierre Gasly and Alex Lynn then found their way past King late on to secure fourth and fifth places.

King looked set to salvage sixth after repulsing the challenge of Campos Racing's Arthur Pic, only for the Frenchman to boot him into a spin at the final corner.

The incident is under investigation, meaning that Pic's sixth place is far from guaranteed.

NEWS UPDATE: Pic penalised for clash with King

Trident driver Raffaele Marciello took seventh place ahead of Yelloly, the latter continuing to make good progress after his late start to the season.

That means Yelloly has pole for tomorrow's sprint race after crossing the line ahead of Oliver Rowland, who performed well on his GP2 debut for MP Motorsport.

Rio Haryanto, twice a race winner in 2015, took 10th place after starting well down the grid thanks to a sensor problem.

Stanaway failed to finish due to a left-rear suspension failure, while Russian Time's Mitch Evans was again let down by his machinery after the cockpit headrest flew off his car and forced him to retire.

RESULTS - 29 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Gap
1 Sergey Sirotkin Rapax 53m13.597s
2 Alexander Rossi Racing Engineering 5.989s
3 Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 13.566s
4 Pierre Gasly DAMS 16.729s
5 Alex Lynn DAMS 20.546s
6 Raffaele Marciello Trident 23.550s
7 Nick Yelloly Hilmer Motorsport 23.879s
8 Rio Haryanto Campos Racing 25.437s
9 Julian Leal Carlin 28.753s
10 Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 30.161s
11 Daniel de Jong MP Motorsport 30.373s
12 Robert Visoiu Rapax 36.922s
13 Johnny Cecotto Jr. Carlin 37.436s
14 Arthur Pic Campos Racing 42.922s
15 Sergio Canamasas Daiko Team Lazarus 44.277s
16 Jon Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 49.850s
17 Rene Binder Trident 53.663s
18 Norman Nato Arden International 57.444s
19 Marlon Stockinger Status Grand Prix 1m00.867s
20 Andre Negrao Arden International 1m04.399s
21 Artem Markelov RUSSIAN TIME 1m26.692s
22 Jordan King Racing Engineering 1 Lap
- Richie Stanaway Status Grand Prix Retirement
- Mitch Evans RUSSIAN TIME Retirement
- Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix Retirement
- Nathanael Berthon Daiko Team Lazarus Retirement


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