Abu Dhabi – Race 2: Frenchman Pierre Gasly crowned champion!
Cocorico in the antechamber of Formula 1! The Normand's modest ninth place in the sprint race was anecdotal, as his rival and team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi finished sixth. Alex Lynn won the final race, ahead of Johnny Cecotto and Sergey Sirotkin.
So far, Pierre Gasly’s weekend has been excellent in every way. After a beautiful pole, the Frenchman went on to win the feature race with complete control. This marked his fourth personal victory of the season: crucial, as it saw him take the lead in the overall standings! Now, the Red Bull junior driver’s tally was 219 points, twelve more than Antonio Giovinazzi, the second and last contender for the drivers’ title. An interesting coincidence between GP2 and Formula 1, as in the top division, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton also had a twelve-point gap before the final race! Only tenth, Raffaele Marciello abandoned his dreams of the title.
On this championship Sunday, which of the two Prema drivers would inscribe their name on the 2016 GP2 winners’ list? To maintain his lead in the standings, the task was simple for Pierre Gasly: finishing automatically in the top five would secure him the title! For the Italian, he absolutely had to finish the race in the top three, or even achieve the fastest lap, to give himself a chance.
Eighth yesterday, it was indeed Alex Lynn (Dams) who started from the first position due to the reversed grid system. Johnny Cecotto (Rapax) and the Frenchman Norman Nato (Racing Engineering) followed. Among the contenders, Giovinazzi started in fourth place, Gasly in eighth.
Giovinazzi drops two places at the start!
22 laps were scheduled for this sprint race, held this time during the day in Abu Dhabi: the start was at 2:25 PM local time. At the start, Giovinazzi had a poor getaway, slipping to sixth. Gasly, meanwhile, maintained his eighth starting position. Among the others, Sirotkin (the ART Grand Prix driver, who started fifth) managed to move up to second place in the first corners.
The positions remained fixed during the first laps. A good deal for Gasly, especially since the drivers on Pirelli medium tires did not have to change tires today. The Italian thus had to go on the offensive or hope for a mistake from his teammate. At the front, Alex Lynn continued to lead Sirotkin, with a margin of about two seconds at mid-race by the end of the eleventh lap.
The dream is definitively slipping away for the Italian…
Circumstantial allies of Pierre Gasly, Cecotto, Matsushita (ART Grand Prix) and Nato completed the top 5. On the ninth lap, the Japanese driver passed the Azurean for fourth place. Just behind, Giovinazzi didn’t take advantage of it. Worse, the title contender lost ground as the race progressed. He saw Artem Markelov coming up in his mirrors. The two competitors even slightly collided on the sixteenth lap at the end of the second DRS zone! There were lively exchanges of wheel-to-wheel action, but both could continue the adventure.
This exchange marked the swan song for Giovinazzi, who was already far behind Cecotto in third place. The end of the race did not change the outcome in this title fight. However, one final change occurred: Gasly surrendered his eighth place to Mitch Evans after a contentious and aggressive overtake, which could have changed everything. But it wasn’t to be: Giovinazzi couldn’t improve his position in the final laps.
In the lead, Alex Lynn crossed the finish line first and won the sprint race. It should be noted that Johnny Cecotto snatched second place from Sergey Sirotkin in the very last lap. And in ninth, a French driver claimed the prize.
Pierre Gasly is thus crowned the 2016 GP2 Series champion!
CONGRATULATIONS to @PierreGASLY – our new #GP2 Champion!! pic.twitter.com/vJm51nXjzd
— GP2 Series Official (@GP2_Official) November 27, 2016
He succeeds a prestigious list of drivers, including another Frenchman, Romain Grosjean (2011); but especially Nico Rosberg (2005) and Lewis Hamilton (2006)! Two drivers mentioned who, 10 years later, are fighting this Sunday for another championship title, that of the highest category…
Stay connected on our site! We will offer you a live text coverage of this last race of the 2016 Formula 1 season: come and react to this race. The rendez-vous is now set for 13:45!
