GP2: Vandoorne leads Matsushita for an ART 1-2

From left, Nobuharu Matsushita, Stoffel Vandoorne (ART Grand Prix), Mitch Evans (RUSSIAN TIME)

It was a glorious day for Stoffel Vandoorne and Nobuharu Matsushita as the pair finished first and second in today’s action packed feature race at Sakhir. With this result, the teammates gave ART Grand Prix the 2015 Teams’ title. Mitch Evans completed the podium.

It all happened at the start for Vandoorne: the Belgian driver made a great getaway from P2 as Pierre Gasly had a more difficult jump from pole position. Behind the leading duo, Raffaele Marciello kept third place ahead of Norman Nato and Alex Lynn. Vandoorne was able to quickly build a 2s gap to Gasly, keeping in mind that he had to make his medium tires last for as long as possible before switching to soft compounds. Behind him, Marciello was able to pass a slower Gasly at Turn 1 for P2.

The Frenchman from DAMS had visibly lost his pace from yesterday’s qualifying and was unable to stop the charging pair of Nato and Matsushita, effectively dropping down to fifth. As Vandoorne looked unreachable at the front maintaining a 3s gap to Marciello, his teammate Matsushita put Nato under huge pressure and eventually passed him for third place on lap 18. This left the Arden man and Gasly battling for P4 with the latter overtaking his countryman three laps later.

Evans was on a mission of his own: the Kiwi who had started from P7 made his way up behind the pair of Gasly and Nato. He decided to be one of the first drivers on medium tires to pit for soft compounds – a strategy that put him ahead of Marciello after the Italian’s own pit-stop.

Alexander Rossi would have finished 2nd or maybe even won if Evans didn't take his wing off

Vandoorne eventually pitted on lap 22. Once his tires were up to temperatures, the Belgian set the quickest laptime of the race and pulled away easily, building a 13s gap to Nathanael Berthon who was on a different strategy having started the race on softs. The Frenchman struggled with tire-wear and started to drop down the field letting pass the battling duo of Evans and Rossi. The pair made small contact and the American who had brilliantly recovered from a slow getaway damaged his front wing and had no other choice but to return to the pits for a new one, thus promoting Matsushita to third.

There was more drama behind for Nato who saw his efforts ruined when he had to return to the pits for a new pair of rear tires. With six laps to go, Evans came under huge pressure from a charging Matsushita. The Kiwi resisted and managed to stay outside of the DRS range, but he started to struggle on his tires and eventually made a mistake which allowed the Japanese driver to get past him.

At the checkered flag, Vandoorne crossed the finish line 13 seconds ahead of his teammate offering ART Grand Prix their fourth GP2 Series teams’ title. Evans was happy to be back on the podium ahead of Marciello, Sergey Sirotkin, Gasly, Haryanto, Lynn, Jordan King and Arthur Pic.

Feature Race

Fastest Lap : Stoffel Vandoorne (ART Grand Prix) : 1 :43.166 on lap 23