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Fantastic Filippi Nails First Win |
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Tuesday, 17 April 2007 |
Super Nova International’s Luca Filippi has turned pole position into his first GP2 Series victory in today’s race at the Bahrain International Circuit. The Italian led from the start and drove with a powerful maturity to withstand the advances of the iSport duo of Timo Glock and Andi Zuber, who bagged the other podium places. Kazuki Nakajima took the fastest lap for Dams.
Race Report: Luca led away from pole with a great start as behind him his rivals jostled for position. Timo flew out of his blocks, and from seventh was up to third by the first turn. Xandi Negrao maintained his second position from the grid with a jump start, but when he and Timo touched wheels at the second turn, the Brazilian was nudged wide and fell back to ninth. The running order saw Luca lead Timo and Andi, with Bruno Senna fourth and Lucas di Grassi fifth. Adrian Zaugg had made a belting start to sit sixth, with Borja Garcia seventh and Michael Ammermuller eighth.
At just under one thirds distance the pit stops began. Michael had
pitted on lap six, with Xandi in three laps later. On the next lap it
was Adrian’s turn, before Andi, Bruno and Lucas all came in together,
emerging in the order in which they had entered. Next time by it was
Timo and on the next lap Luca took his stop. Christian Bakkerud took
the lead as one of the only non-stoppers left.
Behind him Xandi’s race was run on lap 16 when the steering problem
he’d sustained in the first lap incident with Timo became too much to
handle and the Brazilian’s car lurched into the barriers. On the same
lap Lucas, who had fallen behind Nicolas Lapierre in the pitstops, made
it past the Frenchman and set after Adrian, making it past the South
African three laps later. On the same lap, Bakkerud pitted, and the
true order became clear.
Luca was in a class of his own out front, and the iSport boys
maintained position a few seconds down the road, with Bruno pushing to
catch them. Lucas meanwhile was trying to catch his countryman, as
behind him Nicolas was keeping a train of Borja, Michael and Karun
Chandhok at bay. With four laps left to run, Karun slipped up the
inside of Michael for ninth as Borja held on for the final point and
tomorrow’s pole in eighth. Despite being a lap behind, Kazuki took a
point for fastest lap with some scorching final laps.
And that was how it finished. Luca sat in his car in park ferme, still
seemingly unable to grasp the race he had run. He punched the air,
kissed his car, and sang the Italian national anthem at the top of his
lungs. A prouder winner and more savoured victory you will rarely see.
1st Luca Filippi – Super Nova International. 58:34.676 I have no words
to explain how I am feeling now. It’s so big I really can’t understand
how happy I am. I think I will feel it more tomorrow morning. I knew we
had the potential, but this is just incredible.
2nd Timo Glock – iSport International. +8.162 I think we had a pretty
good start but Negrao left me no room at the second turn and we
touched. After that my steering pulled to the right and my suspension
was bent. So to finish second is a great result.
3rd Andi Zuber – iSport International. +11.903 I’m very happy. My aim
was top five and we reached that in qualifying and the race. And I got
a podium, so really, it was perfect. The first two corners were hard
but after that we were OK.
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