Autosport

Felipe Nasr scored his first victory in the GP2 Series in Sunday morning’s sprint race at Barcelona, his 50th start in the category.

Carlin racer Nasr, who made a fantastic start from sixth on the grid, passed poleman Tom Dillmann’s Arden car on lap two to take the lead that he would not relinquish until the chequered flag.

Points leader Jolyon Palmer, following an early clash with Rio Haryanto, took the fight to Nasr in his DAMS car, after passing Dillmann with an audacious move at Turn 7 on lap five. Palmer chased down Nasr, and stayed with him for the first half of the race, before Nasr pulled away.

Palmer came back at him in the closing stages, but a big lock-up at Turn 1 sent him across the run-off, and he dropped back to finish 7.6s behind the Brazilian. “I had a really long brake [pedal] at the end,” said Palmer, who extended his points lead to 22 points.

Dillmann finished third, having been a last-minute call-up for Arden, just holding off a charging Arthur Pic. Julian Leal finished fifth, ahead of yesterday’s winner Johnny Cecotto Jr.

Mitch Evans had run sixth, having charged up from 14th on the grid, but rooted his tyres and tumbled back to the tail of the field.

Results - 26 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team                    Time/Gap
 1.  Felipe Nasr         Carlin                42m01.901s
 2.  Jolyon Palmer       DAMS                     +7.635s
 3.  Tom Dillmann        Arden                   +13.814s
 4.  Arthur Pic          Campos                  +14.172s
 5.  Julian Leal         Carlin                  +14.732s
 6.  Johnny Cecotto      Trident                 +18.842s
 7.  Stephane Richelmi   DAMS                    +19.236s
 8.  Stefano Coletti     Racing Engineering      +22.993s
 9.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Rapax                   +30.744s
10.  Stoffel Vandoorne   ART                     +31.379s
11.  Tio Ellinas         MP                      +31.839s
12.  Daniel Abt          Hilmer                  +32.142s
13.  Takuya Izawa        ART                     +33.313s
14.  Alexander Rossi     Caterham                +34.189s
15.  Kimiya Sato         Campos                  +37.025s
16.  Raffaele Marciello  Racing Engineering      +38.689s
17.  Facu Regalia        Hilmer                  +39.975s
18.  Sergio Canamasas    Trident                 +44.122s
19.  Daniel de Jong      MP                    +1m14.656s
20.  Mitch Evans         Russian Time             +2 laps

Retirements:

     Rio Haryanto        Caterham                2 laps
     Artem Markelov      Russian Time            2 laps
     Simon Trummer       Rapax                   2 laps
     Rene Binder         Arden                   1 lap
     Conor Daly          Lazarus                 1 lap
     Nathanael Berthon   Lazarus                 0 laps

Nasr takes first GP2 win, Evans retires late in race

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