Asian Motor Sports

The GP2 Asian series continues to have heated battles in their inaugural season. Sepang International Circuit is the venue for this weekend’s third round of action and today’s first race of the weekend kept the Malaysia fans attention from the start to the finish. Russian Vitaly Petrov notched his first victory in the Asian series, finishing in front of the host country’s driver, Fairuz Fauzy, with over a six second gap.

“I made a start good enough to come out of the first lap in 6th place. At the restart, under the rain, it was tricky to stay on track,” said Petrov. “But I worked my way to the top corner after corner. It is fantastic to offer this win to my team. I want to take some points tomorrow and be able to fight for the championship.”

This weekend is another first for the series, their first meeting on a Formula One weekend. Perhaps that caused a few drivers an nerve-attack, both polesitter Romain Grosjean and Karun Chandhok stalled their machines on the start line. iSport’s Bruno Senna sailed past the ART Grand Prix car and his teammate Chandhok to edge into the lead.

Following the Brazilian were Adrian Valles and Sebastien Buemi. And then came the rain which has been a common occurrence thus far this season for the series. Senna did a wide slide but kept control while the back of the field has a big shunt, bringing out the red flag.

Involved were Piquet Sport’s Marco Bonanomi, Ben Hanley for Campos, Durango’s Alberto Valerio and to add to the already not a good weekend mood for the Qi- Meritus team, both drivers were off track. Hiroki Yoshimoto was able to make repairs while Luca Filippi was out of the action.

The team sustained penalties post-qualifying on Friday, Filippi was moved from fifth to tenth on the grid and Yoshimoto started 19th instead of 14th. They were two of five drivers who passed under yellow flag conditions during qualifying.

The restart on the now wet track, Valles has his FMSI clearly in front with Buemi second. The two pulled out a gap over the rest of the pack which saw two drivers charging back up the order board: Senna and Grosjean. After taking the fastest lap time, Senna’s hopes were dash when this time his off forces his retirement.

The fight up front became intense as the laps wound down and with three racers challenging for third, Ho-Pin Tung, Petrov and Fauzy were focused on their own battle which allowed the two leaders to build a nice cushion.

“At the restart, I had a great fight with Buemi, but my tyres were too hot so we decided to pit and change to slick tyres. It took 3 laps to warm up the tyres,” Fauzy explained. “I saw Vitaly in front of me and I could have caught him, but Nunes blocked me! This is my home race: I wanted to perform well.”

Routine pit stops were not simple and would change the outcome of Saturday’s race. Buemi came in one lap ahead of Valles, who kept the lead with the Arden driver pushing harder to take the lead. Buemi ended up hitting Valles, ending their challenge for the victory on lap 22.

Trident Racing’s Tung spun out of the three-way fight and the race.

The door opened for Petrov and Grosjean with BCN’s Milos Pavlovic closing in on the two new leaders; the Serbian pushed a bit too hard making contact with Grosjean. The Frenchman who has been a dominate force in the GP2 Asian series had to pit. Grosjean kept the points lead after today’s race despite finishing ninth.

DAMS driver Jerome d’Ambrosio was pleased to stay out of trouble to score third; 07.725 seconds off the winning time.

For many it was a matter of actually finishing and grabbing coveted points. Campos’ Petrov took his maiden win on Fauzy’s hometrack. The Malaysian driver will give it another shot tomorrow for a race win at home.

Durango’s Davide Valsecchi placed fourth followed by Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS), Arden’s Adam Khan, Pavlovic and Harald Schlegelmilch for Trident Racing. Thirteen racers finished and 13 did not including champion contenders, Valles, Senna and Buemi.

Sunday’s race will start at 3:00pm (local time) following the F1 race and victory ceremony.