Third for di Grassi in Barcelona
Lucas di Grassi scored the first podium of his GP2 career
when he finished third in the Saturday race in Barcelona.
However the result was tinged in disappointment for the Renault
Driver Development squad member, who felt he could have done
better had tyre problems not slowed his progress in the latter
stages of the race.
Di Grassi was fourth in qualifying with the ART entry, but
moved up a place after one of the drivers ahead was penalised.
That left him behind only the I-Sport entries of Timo Glock
and Andreas Zuber.
`I qualified fourth on time, but I started third because
Giorgio Pantano lost places as he did his time under yellows,´
said Lucas. ´I think I did a good job, and I made no
mistakes. I was maybe not as quick as I could have been, and
it was not really a clear lap, but I was quick. It was just
that the I-Sport cars were really fast, and they had a set-up
for qualifying that was much better than everybody else´s.
But I was happy to be starting in the top three.´
Zuber stalled and created an aborted start, so Lucas went
to the grid with only Glock in front of him. He held on to
second, but almost immediately a safety car was called out
after a series of incidents. At the end of the second lap
Lucas made his compulsory pit stop in order to get it out
of the way while the safety car was out. Glock chose to stay
out.
Lucas should have emerged at the head of the queue of cars
that pitted, but in the pit lane he got caught behind Kazuki
Nakajima, who was slowing and waiting for team mate Nicolas
Lapierre to vacate the pit box. That meant Lucas lost out
to both Bruno Senna and Lapierre. He caught and passed the
Frenchman, but the effort pushed his tyres over the edge,
and meant that he was not able to challenge Senna. When Glock
finally pitted he came out in front of Lucas, consigning him
to third.
`Ít was good to be on the podium, but it was not as
good as I expected. I was thinking that Timo was going in
on the same lap, but he didn´t. I was just behind him,
so I said that´s great! I went in, did my pit stop,
and when I exited the pit stop Nakajima was holding me up,
because Lapierre was stopped in the pits. At this point I
lost two places to Bruno and Lapierre. I knew that I had to
push a lot to overtake them.
´It was exactly the same as happened in Bahrain. I
had to overtake two people, and then you push the rear tyres
a lot – you use a lot of downforce and you overheat
the rear tyres. I was catching Bruno, but in the last 15 laps
the tyres were very hard to drive. We´ll try to change
for tomorrow, but the race is shorter.´
Overnight Lucas is fourth in the championship on 10 points.
He will start the Saturday race from sixth place.
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