Adrian Quaife-Hobbs made it a weekend to remember in Monza as he claimed his maiden GP2 victory on Sunday afternoon.
Having finished seventh in the feature race on Saturday afternoon, Adrian started from second on the grid in the sprint race on Sunday morning.
He made the most of his front row start with a lightening quick getaway to lead into the first corner and that is where he stayed, as he showed a matureness and calmness to turn the potential into reality and take that first win in GP2.
Race one had Adrian starting on the eighth row of the grid and he made the midseason switch to Hilmer motorsport look a good one, as he made up place after place during the 30 lap feature race.
He really couldn’t have asked for a better race on Sunday to seal the win and not even a shower mid race could deter him from standing on the top step for the first time. He will now be hoping to kick on and secure more podium finishes in the final two race weekends of the season.
Speaking after the race, Adrian said: “We knew the pace was good this weekend and victory in the second race was the perfect result,” said Adrian. “In the opening race I made a good start to get up to 11th, and took the decision to pit early and try and get a clear track. I was stuck behind Nasr, with oil spewing out, so it was hard to get close enough to make a pass. I was attacking him all the way, but without that I could possibly have got sixth.
“In race two, I made another good start and managed to break the slipstream and pull out a one second gap by the end of lap one. When the rain came on lap seven, it was tricky. Naturally being first round means you pretty much dictate the race, but after it stopped everything settled down and I was able to push all the way through. I really wanted fastest lap, and my last lap was my best, but I lost some time on the dirty edge of the track at the last corner, but I was still only half a tenth off the quickest lap.
“Nevertheless I’m really happy with my first win in GP2, we’ve proved again we have good race pace and are consistently competitive. The car was really good all weekend, pretty much perfect, but now we need to focus on qualifying as it would be nice to get a good result in Saturday’s feature race.”
The series continues with the penultimate round in Singapore over the weekend of 21&22 of September, a new circuit to Quaife-Hobbs, but where he looks to repeat the performance to elevate himself in the championship standings.