Race – Bahrain: An ART one-two secures them the Teams’ title
Stoffel Vandoorne ended a two-weekend winless streak by winning the first race of the weekend in Bahrain. He finished ahead of his teammate Nobuharu Matsushita, securing the title for ART Grand Prix. Mitch Evans completed the podium.
We hadn’t seen the champion of the year on the top step of the podium since his home race at Spa-Francorchamps. He resumed his total domination of the discipline by winning his sixth victory of the season. At the same time, he, along with his teammate, achieved the second ART Grand Prix one-two finish, after the one in Budapest. Enough to secure the French team’s fourth team title.
The McLaren protégé made the difference right from the start: he managed to get the better of poleman Pierre Gasly and never relinquished the lead after that. He based his strategy on starting with medium tires before finishing on softs. It worked perfectly as he emerged in the lead after his pit stop on lap 22. He then only had to maintain his advantage until the end of the race, which he finished with a 13-second lead over his closest rival.
But to finish second, Nobuharu Matsushita had to fight since he started from 8th place on the grid. Right from the start, he moved up to 5th place, before overtaking the DAMS of Pierre Gasly to climb to fourth place. With six laps to go, he managed to push Mitch Evans into using up his tire reserves and forcing him to make a mistake, which cleared the way for him to take the second step on the podium.
Alexander Rossi had managed to make up for a missed qualification and a ninth place on the grid to climb into a position to fight for another podium. Nevertheless, all his efforts were ruined by a slight collision with Mitch Evans, which forced him to return to the pits to change the front wing. He then found himself relegated to the back of the field, in a modest 18th place finish. Therefore, he has little hope of scoring new points in the championship this weekend.
