Adrian Quaife-Hobbs made it a successful GP2 race weekend in Bahrain after he scored points in the Sprint race this morning.
He brought his MP Motorsport machine home in eighth place, which was the final points paying position meaning he picked up a single point to add to his six from the feature race yesterday.
It means that he now has seven points in this year’s Championship as the series moves to the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain for round three.
At one stage Quaife-Hobbs was battling to hold onto fifth place with two laps of the race remaining but he couldn’t keep the train of cars behind him, as fellow Brits Jolyon Palmer and James Calado passed him.
He did however manage to keep out of the points the winner of the feature race on Saturday afternoon Fabio Leimar, who was all over the young Brits gearbox in the last lap of the race, but Quaife-Hobbs made his car as wide as possible and held onto eighth.
“It’s been a fairly positive weekend here in Bahrain, and I’m pretty happy to get two points-scoring finishes,” said Adrian at the end of the day. “Practice didn’t go as well as I’d have liked, however qualifying more than made up for that. I had a great start to my flying lap, but I made a small mistake which cost me a top four or five grid position.
“In the opening race we opted for a different strategy, starting on the harder tyres, so holding station was the best we could have hoped for. After the stop I managed to chase down Trummer and enjoyed a good battle with him and I felt we could have caught Sam (Bird) but the tyres went off.
“In race two, naturally we were hoping for a lot. I made a good start, and me and Dillmann managed to pull away into the first corner. I tried to take the lead around the outside, but I out-braked myself and lost a few places. I started to struggle with oversteer, which got worse and worse as the race went on, and for the last eight laps I had virtually no grip.
“When James (Calado) got past me, I lost momentum which allowed the other two past, however I’m pleased to have kept Leimer behind me. I think we’ve made a massive leap forward and I think we’ve shown we have the pace to run at the front in qualifying and in the races. These are good results to build on for the coming races and I’m very much looking forward to the next rounds, where I hope we can continue our learning curve.”
Palmer by contract, having battled with Quaife-Hobbs for fifth place over the closing stages of the race had to settle for sixth place as Calado passed him into fifth place.
It means that all four Brits that were on the grid finished inside the points with Sam Bird taking his maiden win for the newly formed Russian Time team, as he started on pole and finished just 0.080 seconds in front of Felipe Nasr.
It represents a fantastic end to an entertaining race weekend for all four of the British drivers involved in the GP2 Championship.
It may not be too much longer before we have another British driver joining Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Paul Di Resta and Max Chilton on the grid in Formula One.
The GP2 drivers now take a break from competitive racing until the Spanish Grand Prix weekend in Barcelona, on the weekend of the 10-12 May.
Result from the GP2 Sprint Race in Bahrain
| Driver | Team | |
| 1. | Sam Bird | RUSSIAN TIME |
| 2. | Felipe Nasr | Carlin |
| 3. | Stefano Coletti | Rapax |
| 4. | Tom Dillmann | RUSSIAN TIME |
| 5. | James Calado | ART Grand Prix |
| 6. | Jolyon Palmer | Carlin |
| 7. | Daniel Abt | ART Grand Prix |
| 8. | Adrian Quaife-Hobbs | MP Motorsport |
| 9. | Fabio Leimer | Racing Engineering |
| 10. | Kevin Ceccon | Trident Racing |
| 11. | Sergio Canamasas | Caterham Racing |
| 12. | Johnny Cecotto | Arden International |
| 13. | Stéphane Richelmi | DAMS |
| 14. | Simon Trummer | Rapax |
| 15. | Mitch Evans | Arden International |
| 16. | Julian Leal | Racing Engineering |
| 17. | Kevin Giovesi | Venezuela GP Lazarus |
| 18. | Daniel De Jong | MP Motorsport |
| 19. | Jake Rosenzweig | Barwa Addax Team |
| 20. | Alexander Rossi | Caterham Racing |
| 21. | Pal Varhaug | Hilmer Motorsport |
| 22. | Nathanaël Berthon | Trident Racing |
| 23. | Robin Frijns | Hilmer Motorsport |
| 24. | Rio Haryanto | Barwa Addax Team |
| 25. | Rene Binder | Venezuela GP Lazarus |
Not Classified
| Marcus Ericsson | DAMS |