Although he was quickly into the lead of the GP2 sprint race – from eighth place on the reverse grid – Mitch Evans was unable to repeat Saturday’s winning performance in a scrappy wet and dry affair at Hockenheim last night.
A heavy downpour just before the start of the 26 lap race doused the German Grand Prix circuit and created a dilemma about tyre selection for the 26 drivers and their frantic teams.
The Russian Time team opted to start Evans on wet tyres; a few brave gamblers decided to risk starting on slicks, and those choices defined the eventually outcome in a race of fast changing fortunes.
A charge straight down the middle of the track had Evans into second place before the first corner and after an early safety car delay, the New Zealander passed Frenchman Nathanael Berthon for the lead. However it quickly changed.
“Mt pace was good at the start and the car felt good for the first few laps. Then I started to lose grip and struggle for traction. It had been hard for the engineers to pick the settings in the wet conditions. Our tyres pressures went too high and I was soon falling back,” said Evans.
“There wasn’t much I could do about the situation because the car was sliding too much coming out of the corners. We stopped to change to a set of the softer slicks but they were well worn from Friday qualifying and went off quickly.”
The race was difficult for every driver because the dry racing line that emerged was fringed by a damp track. Evans fought gamely to stay in the top eight and earn points, but at the finish he had dropped to eleventh and ended his run of seven scoring results.
Stefano Coletti and Williams test driver Felipe Nasr were among the few drivers to take a gamble on slicks, and their decision paid off when the pair finished 1-2 ahead of McLaren test driver Stoffel Vandoorne.
At the start the advantage was heavily towards the conservative choice: poleman Berthon easily took the start with the rest of the top four, including Nasr, struggling to get off the line. Coletti had a comparatively good start but was still swamped as Jolyon Palmer, Evans and Marco Sorensen stormed past,
Palmer went slightly wide at turn one and dropping behind the pair as Johnny Cecotto and Stéphane Richelmi came together: the latter’s car caught fire, prompting a safety car period.
Evans made short work of Berthon at the restart but was clearly on the wrong set up. The New Zealander was unable to do anything to stop Vandoorne at the hairpin next time round and, dropping two seconds a lap, soon fell back threw the field.
But with the track drying out, the question was which lap should drivers come in to change tyres. Palmer opened the door by pitting on lap 10, just before Coletti claimed the fastest lap on his slick tyres.
A safety car for a beached Takuya Izawa gave teammate Vandoorne a perfect window to change to slicks, emerging with Sorensen just behind the last wet tyre stragglers on track, who disappeared as the race went live:
Coletti was just behind the pair at the restart and made the most of his warmer tyres, and familiarity with the conditions, to blast into the lead next time round, with Nasr following him through on the next lap.
For the remainder of the race Coletti and Nasr had a lone battle for the win, with the pair swapping fastest laps between them. but the Monegasque driver held the gap of just over a second all the way to the finish line, with Vandoorne the best placed of the wet tyre starters rounding out the podium.
Palmer still holds the lead in the drivers’ championship on 168 points to Nasr’s 127, with Cecotto on 100, Coletti moving up to 96, Evans on 92 and Vandoorne on 86 points.
The GP2 series now moves to Hungary for round seven next weekend.
Results - 26 laps:
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1. Stefano Coletti Racing Engineering 45m31.696s
2. Felipe Nasr Carlin +1.238s
3. Stoffel Vandoorne ART +5.531s
4. Marco Sorensen MP +15.656s
5. Jon Lancaster Hilmer +17.961s
6. Jolyon Palmer DAMS +18.401s
7. Alexander Rossi Campos +19.840s
8. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Rapax +24.222s
9. Tom Dillmann Caterham +25.438s
10. Rio Haryanto Caterham +36.088s
11. Mitch Evans Russian Time +39.177s
12. Artem Markelov Russian Time +40.186s
13. Sergio Canamasas Trident +45.938s
14. Simon Trummer Rapax +52.486s
15. Daniel Abt Hilmer +54.865s
16. Daniel de Jong MP +55.552s
17. Nathanael Berthon Lazarus +56.878s
18. Julian Leal Carlin +1m03.994s
19. Takuya Izawa ART +1m08.828s
20. Conor Daly Lazarus +1m09.713s
21. Andre Negrao Arden +1m12.677s
22. Rene Binder Arden +1m15.032s
Retirements:
Johnny Cecotto Trident 21 laps
Arthur Pic Campos 11 laps
Raffaele Marciello Racing Engineering 7 laps
Stephane Richelmi DAMS 0 laps
