2013 GP2: The Season so far..

Stefano Coletti is leading the championship The GP2 season passed it’s half way mark, as the championship had its Races 11 and 12 in Germany, at Nürburgring. The championship has 22 races in total which means there is still a long way to go, before the championship is decided, and anything can still happen. Nothing is certain in this series, and it’s one of those reasons what makes it so interesting. Young talents are fighting for the title, and fighting for positions on the track head to head, to show that they have enough potential to get to the next level- Formula 1. Sometimes this eagerness leads into amazing moves on the track, and sometimes it leads to unfortunate accidents. This is what makes GP2 a great series to follow. As the season passed the halfway mark, there will be quite a long break before the championship continues in Hungary. It’s a good time to review what has happened during the season so far. There were things to discuss about the stewards, straight from the first qualifying session of the year. Johnny Cecotto was driving his qualifying lap and Sam Bird was going slowly in front of him. Bird didn’t block Cecotto on purpose and wasn’t badly on his way, but Cecotto was furious at Bird for ruining his qualifying lap, by being on the front. Cecotto turned his car straight into Bird’s and forced him to go off the track. This situation was an embarrassing one for both the fans, and the drivers, and the stewards took the situation to investigation. FIA punished Cecotto by excluding his qualifying result, making him to start from the back of the grid for the first race of the season. Bird was also punished for impeding Cecotto’s lap and he received a three-place grid penalty. Bird was really angry about his penalty, while many people suggested a race ban for Cecotto, but it didn’t happen. Thankfully it wasn’t the only thing to make the qualifying interesting. The session itself was very competitive as the top three Coletti, Calado and Nasr were all packed with a difference of 0,008 seconds. The first race of the year was won by Fabio Leimer who did great job during the pre-season testing. He had a good fight with Stefano Coletti until the last laps of the race. Coletti had started the race from pole and lead the race, as Leimer got to the second place while Nasr and Calado were battling hard for position, when Calado forced Nasr out of the track. Coletti had struggled with his tyres before his first pit stop, and Leimer was closing on him. The battle continued after the pit stops and with only four laps left, Leimer was able to make the move for the lead. Coletti was struggling with his tyres again and James Calado was able to catch Coletti and get past him for second place. Nasr was also closing on Coletti, but in the end there wasn’t enough laps for him to make the move. Leimer won and had Calado and Coletti as his podium company while Nasr was right behind on fourth. Coletti struggled in the first race, but it all turned around in Sunday’s race, as Coletti was able the catch the lead, from his 6th position on the grid. Calado was again aggressive on the start, While on Saturday’s race he forced Nasr off the track, but this time, he ended up breaking too late into a corner, went off the track, lost control and crashed into Leimer, who in turn hit Sam Bird’s car. Bird and Calado had to retire the race, but Leimer was still able to continue. Calado apologized for the incident, after the race and was handed a 10 position grid penalty for the next race for causing a collision. Coletti was leading the race and Nasr was putting pressure on him until the end, but once again there wasn’t enough laps for Nasr. Coletti won, Nasr was 2nd and one of the 2013’s rookies, Mitch Evans, got his first podium in the series. After Malaysia, the series went to Bahrain and Fabio Leimer started strongly straight from the practice session and took pole position for Saturday’s race, with a one second gap to the second place Marcus Ericsson. Ericsson had a struggle, as he stalled his car on the start of the warm-up lap. He lost his great starting position, and he had to start the race from the pit lane. Driving standards were questioned once again as Caterham driver Sergio Canamasas pushed Calado off the track. Canamasas was punished with a drive through penalty. Leimer continued with the strong form and won the race before Coletti and Alexander Rossi. For a third race in a row Nasr was in a position to hunt for the podium, until the very last lap, and this time he lost to Rossi only with 0.4 seconds. A closer finish awaited on Sunday.

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