The First GP2 Race at the 2013 British Grand Prix was on Saturday afternoon after F1 Qualifying, and was a dramatic event from the start. Marcus Ericsson started from pole, and got off to a great start, with the Russian Time car of British driver Sam Bird picking up some wheel spin, allowing Felipe Nasr to pass him. However, both Ericsson and Nasr ended up off the track through racing each other allowing Bird to pass and take the lead.
After initially building quite a lead, the obligatory pit stop put Bird in some traffic, that managed to hold him up as he hoped to remain in the lead after the pit stops had all been completed. As the race went on, there was plenty of dramatic overtaking as ever, and Sam Bird continued to race through the traffic, so that when his team mate, Tom Dillman took his pit stop, Sam had a lead again at the front of the race, which he retained to cross the finish line first, pleasing the home crowd with a British winner for the first race of the Grand Prix weekend.
GP2 is often dramatic, and this race lived up to that, with plenty of overtaking and action throughout the event, and with the drivers showing the skill that is required to drive so closely and push so hard with so few incidents caused by cars touching. I suspect that some of the drivers in GP2 this year – as always – will very soon be racing in the feature event at Grands Prix, and the winner of this race, Sam Bird, must be on the radar of a number of Formula One teams at the moment.
Here are a few pictures of the race, I hope that you like them.
There is an index of my photos from the weekend here