2013 GP2: The Season so far..

Sam Bird (Planet F1)

Sunday’s race went ahead without a bigger drama, and Stefano Coletti made a dream come true, by winning a race on his home streets. He started the race from third, managed to get 2nd place on the start and took the lead couple of laps later from Quaiffe-Hobbs who had started from pole and finished the race in the 2nd place. Evans took another podium place of the weekend by finishing 3rd, as Nasr was fourth and Calado fifth.

After Monaco there was a one month break from GP2, as the next race was going to be the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and it was a weekend to make things a bit more interesting in the championship. Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr battled for the lead after the start of Saturday’s race.

Nasr tried to pass Ericsson, but the Swede pushed him off the track. On the next corner Nasr was able to make his move, but Sam Bird already had an advantage from the battling duo, and went onto the race lead. A slight touch with Ericsson caused some damage to Nasr’s car, and after his pitstop, Nasr started to lose many positions on the track.

He had to retire from the race and it was the first time he ended without the points. Things looked good for Coletti as he was hunting for another great result and his main rival was out of the race . What could possibly go wrong?

Coletti was running in third place on the race, when Fabio Leimer started to challenge him for the position. Leimer tried to make a move on Coletti, but instead he touched Coletti’s car and Coletti went off the track. It was the race over for the Monegasque, and for the first time both the championship leaders were out of the race. Sam Bird won his home race and made a big jump forward on the championship standings.

As Coletti and Nasr were out of the race on Saturday, this meant the duo needed to start from the back of the grid for Sunday’s race. Both drivers made their way up on the field after the first lap. Coletti was already tenth and Nasr 12th.

Safety Car came to the track as Daniel Abt had a spin and his car was stopped dangerously in the middle of the track. This helped Coletti and Nasr as the field was packed. Jolyon Palmer and Sergio Canamasas were fighting for positions, but Canamasas broke his front wing when defending from Palmer and went into the pits to change the wing.

These two went head to head later on again as Canamasas had dropped to the back and was going to get lapped by Palmer. Canamasas didn’t let Palmer to pass and there should have been blue flags for Canamasas. Palmer tried to overtake Canamasas but the Caterham driver didn’t give any space and both drivers went off the track.

Canamasas was able to continue the race, but Palmer had to retire. Canamasas was punished with a 10 second stop-and-go penalty for causing a collision. Jon Lancaster won the race which meant that both the GP2 races at Silverstone were won by a British driver. Nasr managed to get himself up to seventh place and took some points, but Coletti didn’t get any points from the race with his 10th position.

In Germany, Coletti was back to the podium with his third place, with an amazing finish as he battled with Frins, Leimer and Richelmi until the chequered flag, and pushed himself to the podium place. Nasr meanwhile didn’t have a great race on Saturday. The Brazilian made his pitstop very early and it didn’t work out.

In the final laps of the race, he started to lose positions as his tyres were out of the optimum range, and he ended the race with 9th position. Sunday was a better one for Nasr and he managed to recover to fourth position, while Coletti had a struggle during the whole race and dropped positions, finishing the race in 18th position.

The championship leaders, Monegasque Stefano Coletti and Brazilian Felipe Nasr, have both been very consistent this season.

Coletti has three victories already this season, and has surprised with his good pace this year, and is 27 points in front of Nasr on the championship standings. Coletti has also finished three races without points, while Nasr has been out of the points only once.

British Sam Bird is third on the points and also has three victories at this part of the season like Coletti. Bird was able to reduce his points gap to the leaders at Silverstone when both Coletti and Nasr had difficult races.

Calado is on the fourth place and is also closing to the top three, which makes the second part of the season very interesting. Coletti wants to continue strong, to keep the gap to Nasr and Bird, while Nasr knows he needs to be consistent, and needs to start winning races, to catch up with Coletti’s points lead.

Carlin is on the top of the Team’s standings, even though the team hasn’t won any race during this early season, and is the only team who has collected points from every race so far with at least one driver.

The second part of the season will play a big part in both drivers and team championships and anything can still happen as this series is so close and competitive. You can be sure about one thing, every race leaves you with something to talk about, and this is what makes GP2 a special racing series, as it’s also the best way for young drivers to get closer to their dream, Formula 1.