Tonbridge racer Adrian Quaife-Hobbs scored the first points of his GP2 season in Bahrain at the weekend.
The Manor Motorsport driver scored points in both the feature race on Saturday afternoon and the Sprint race on Sunday morning.
By finishing in seventh place in the feature race it netted the 22-year-old six points, and by finishing eighth in the sprint race he netted another valuable point. He now has his first points on the board for GP2 this season and he can look to build from there in the upcoming European races.
At one stage in race two Adrian was challenging for the lead of the race with Tom Dillman in his Russian Time car but soon began to experience issues with his car which meant that he couldn’t hang onto the position that he was in.
Giving his reaction after his best weekend of the season so far, Adrian said: “It’s been a fairly positive weekend here in Bahrain, and I’m pretty happy to get two points-scoring finishes,”
“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.”
The GP2 season now heads for its European leg, starting at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain over the weekend of the 11th and 12th May.