Fabio Leimer finished yesterday’s Feature Race in second place after a faultless performance in a very competitive race.
Leimer made a clean start from the second row and the Racing Engineering car held onto 3rd position as the cars braked for the first corner. The first lap of 32 was completed without incident and as the cars crossed the line Leimer was 0.5 seconds behind Valsecchi and 0.6 seconds ahead of Ericsson.
Over the next few laps Leimer lost ground to the two cars ahead as he was on the harder Prime tyres whilst the leaders were on the softer Option tyre. However by lap 8 Leimer had closed the gap as the Option tyres began to deteriorate and on the following lap the Racing Engineering car was looking for a way to pass Van Der Garde and despite being forced off the track briefly the young Swiss driver found a way past and was up to second place.
On lap 11 Leimer made his compulsory pit stop changing all four tyres and resuming the track in 8th but 2nd on the road as all but one of the cars ahead had yet to stop.
By lap 16 Leimer was 4.7 seconds behind Valsecchi and slowly closing on the DAMS car. The gap had narrowed to 4 seconds after 22 laps but Valsecchi began to push and the two cars began to lap at very similar speeds. As the race entered its final laps it was clear to Leimer that the two cars were too evenly matched and the Racing Engineering driver settled for 2nd place at the flag.
Nathanaël Berthon made a good start and at the end of the first lap in the final corner he out-braked Gutierrez to finish the lap 13th. The Racing Engineering car now began to chase Dillmann and on lap 4 Berthon was 0.5 seconds behind the Rapax car. The young Frenchman took his mandatory pitstop on lap 12 resuming in 13th place and two laps later he made a great move to pass Gutierrez. Berthon was now chasing Crestani and on lap 17 he tried to out-brake the GP Lazarus car but made contact, spinning and resuming the race in 18th place.
With 7 laps to go Berthon was up to 14th and fighting hard with Melker who was less than 0.5 seconds ahead. Berthon was soon ahead of the Ocean car but with the next car over 10 seconds ahead he had to settle for 12th place at the end of 32 hard laps.
Leimer will start today’s Sprint Race from 7th on the reversed grid and after his very competitive showing, Fabio will be looking for another podium finish. Berthon will be looking to gain as many places as possible to try and move up to a points scoring finish.
