GP2: Alexander Rossi victorious at accident-packed Monza

What could have turned out to be a great weekend for Pierre Gasly was cut short by a wheel issue, causing the polesitter to retire from the race. In subsequent laps, Alexander Rossi’s efforts paid off as he overtook Stoffel Vandoorne and won the race. Gasly started from pole, managing to keep the lead right from the start. Alex Lynn managed to overtake Stoffel Vandoorne and push him to third.

He was soon overtaken again, this time by Sergey Sirotkin, dropping to fourth. In the meantime, Pierre Gasly was building up the lead up to 2.8s by lap 2. During lap 4, the Safety Car was deployed when MP Motorsport driver Meindert Van Buuren lost control and hit the wall at Ascari. Luckily, the Dutch driver exited the car and was okay. That incident significantly cut Gasly’s lead to just 0.7 seconds and at the restart, Sergey Sirotkin tried overtaking Alex Lynn who managed to defend his position. In the meantime, Cecotto was issued a drive-through penalty for jump-starting the car.

In lap 7, Vandoorne pitted early as did Pic, and on lap 8, DRS was enabled. By the end of lap 8, Gasly pitted, leaving the lead to Lynn. At the exit, Gasly suffered wheel problems and was overtaken by Vandoorne. Lynn also had tire problems in the pits, and was overtaken by Vandoorne. On lap 11, Nobuharu Matsushita retired from the race while Stoffel Vandoorne managed to overtake Sergey Sirotkin for the de facto lead. Sirotkin retaliated and returned to the lead. But, in lap 13, Lynn hit Sirotkin in the first chicane, badly damaging both of the cars, thus ending the race for himself. On lap 16, Sirotkin was issued a 10 second penalty for unsafe release, effectively ending his race as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJI7YRXZveY

The next one to endanger Vandoorne’s lead was Alexander Rossi who started attacking him on lap 18, but the Belgian managed to defend his position. On lap 23, the pit cycle was finally completed and Vandoorne got to the lead. In the beginning of lap 24, Alexander Rossi managed to overtake Vandoorne in the chicane. Norman Nato was issued a 5s penalty for speeding in the pit lane, making his attacks on Arthur Pic futile.

On lap 28, Nato overtook Pic, as did Mitch Evans on lap 29. Alexander Rossi took the win in front of Vandoorne and Mitch Evans finished third thanks to a fantastic run during the final laps. Stanaway and Markelov were on fourth and fifth, while Nato dropped to sixth with the penalty enforced. Arthur Pic was seventh and Jordan King finished the race eighth and will start the sprint race from pole. You can see the detailed results here.