Valsecchi clinches GP2 Asia title

The iSport driver lurked in third for most of the distance, before mounting another late surge to overcome Arden's Javier Villa and Meritus' Luca Filippi and claim his third victory in five rounds.

With Valsecchi's nearest rival and team-mate Oliver Turvey delayed in the pits and unable to score, the win gave Valsecchi an insurmountable points lead.

Filippi and Villa burst from the second row into the lead at the start, while polesitter Jules Bianchi (ART) immediately fell out of contention for victory for a very poor start.

Villa looked faster than Filippi in the opening laps, but with no way past on track, he dived in for an early stop.

The extra speed on fresh tyres paid dividends for Villa, and by the time the pitstops were complete he was in the lead ahead of Filippi and Valsecchi.

As has been the case throughout the championship, Valsecchi got quicker and quicker as the race progressed. An initial dive-bomb move on Filippi for second saw him skitter over the run-off at the Turn 10 hairpin, but he quickly regrouped and passed his countryman into Turn 1 with six laps to go.

He then caught Villa in just one lap and took the lead with a straightforward outbraking move - only to then run wide at Turn 10 later in the lap and hand first place back again.

It was only a brief respite for Villa though, as Valsecchi soon repassed him into the first corner and pulled away to secure victory.

Villa lost more pace as his tyres faded, allowing Filippi to drive around the outside of him and take second. DPR's Giacomo Ricci came within 0.2 seconds of depriving Villa of third too as they diced on the final lap.

Charles Pic took the second Arden car to fifth ahead of Coloni's returnee Alvaro Parente and Addax's Sergio Perez.

Adrian Zaugg got quicker throughout the race on his return with Trident, charging past Turvey and Bianchi in the closing stages to claim eighth and pole for race two. Turvey had lost several places in his pitstop with a wheelgun problem while Bianchi never got up to speed after dropping down the order at the start.

Pos  Driver                Team            Time/Gap
 1.  Davide Valsecchi      iSport      1h02m05.146s
 2.  Luca Filippi          Meritus         + 2.792s
 3.  Javier Villa          Arden           + 6.067s
 4.  Giacomo Ricci         DPR             + 6.238s
 5.  Charles Pic           Arden          + 13.026s
 6.  Alvaro Parente        Coloni         + 17.777s
 7.  Sergio Perez          Addax          + 23.948s
 8.  Adrian Zaugg          Trident        + 25.479s
 9.  Oliver Turvey         iSport         + 29.253s
10.  Jules Bianchi         ART            + 33.238s
11.  Daniele Zampieri      Rapax          + 34.509s
12.  Yelmer Buurman        Ocean          + 39.513s
13.  Sam Bird              ART            + 40.415s
14.  Christian Vietoris    DAMS           + 41.750s
15.  Edoardo Piscopo       DAMS           + 45.779s
16.  Will Bratt            Coloni         + 46.803s
17.  Vladimir Arabadzhiev  Rapax          + 48.577s
18.  Max Chilton           Addax        + 1m05.086s
19.  Jake Rosenzweig       Super Nova   + 1m06.211s
20.  Fabio Leimer          Ocean        + 1m23.385s
21.  Josef Kral            Super Nova   + 1m53.049s
22.  Plamen Kralev         Trident          + 1 lap
23.  Michael Herck         DPR             + 2 laps

Retirements:

     Alexander Rossi       Meritus      26 laps