The StakesSince the start of the 2015 season, one man has dominated the rest of the pack: Stoffel Vandoorne in his second year of GP2 seems to be unbeatable. With two pole positions, three feature race wins, two podium finishes in sprint race, two fastest laps and fifty-nine laps led, the man from ART Grand Prix has scored in every single race so far.
His closest rival however has been looking mighty strong too: Alexander Rossi may still be chasing after a first win this year, but he’s already pocketed three rostrums and a blazing pole position in Monte Carlo. Both men will be everyone else’s main targets this weekend as the GP2 paddock returns to the Red Bull Ring for the fourth round of the season.
The fast and flowing track always provides plenty of drama for drivers and spectators, with several changes of elevation and technical corners where gaining good traction on the exit is especially important. The uncertainty of the weather will add extra suspense to the event as Pirelli selected Medium and Supersoft tyres.
There will be one driver change this weekend as Simon Trummer joins Hilmer Motorsport in replacement of Johnny Cecotto.
Mitch Evans (RUSSIAN TIME):
“I really enjoy this track. It’s very short and it reminds me of the tracks I am used to from New Zealand. Normally qualifying is very tight. There’s not much run off so there’s not much room for error which I like. You don’t really see on TV how much of a climb up there is from turn 1 to turn 2. The second to last corner is very interesting and very challenging. It’s probably the fastest corner of the track. Then the last corner has got a big drop in the middle by the apex which is quite different.
“Last year, it was possible to overtake into turns 1, 2 and 3. You can definitely make some moves there. The tyre degradation is quite low. The track is smooth and it’s not overly-demanding on the tyres. It’s quite easy to keep the tyres in good conditions. I’m looking forward to it after a bad few races and hopefully we can be strong.”
Pirelli Quote
“Spielberg was brand new to GP2 last year, so it’s a track that the teams do not have so much historical information about, although we know that it is not so demanding for tyres. Last year, which was the first season that Spielberg returned to the calendar, we nominated the medium and soft: a choice that was a bit too conservative. So now we have gone a step softer with the option tyre. We’ve seen in all the feature races so far this year that tyre strategy plays an extremely important role, and we’d expect that to be the case again in Austria, with a wide variety of possibilities open to the drivers thanks to the particular layout of the track and the characteristics of the compounds.”
Season Stats 44 Number of points between Stoffel Vandoorne and Alexander Rossi in the drivers’ standings.
38 Average number of points scored per round by Vandoorne so far.
23.33 Average number of points scored per round by Rossi so far.
10 Number of teams who have scored at least one podium finish this season so far.
Noteworthy
Stoffel Vandoorne and Alexander Rossi are the only two drivers who have scored points in every single race this season.
Monte Carlo Sprint Race was the first event of the season in which Vandoorne did not finish on the podium (8th place).
Rossi has finished on the podium in all feature races so far.
Following a penalty picked in Monte Carlo Sprint Race, Jordan King (Racing Engineering) will lose three grid places in this week’s feature race.
Lazarus is now named “Daiko Team Lazarus”.
Driver change: Simon Trummer returns to GP2 as he replaces Johnny Cecotto in car #25 (Hilmer Motorsport).
Fun with figures
23 Number of GP2 graduates who participated in Les 24 Heures du Mans race last weekend.
6 Number of current GP2 drivers who participated to Les 24 Heures du Mans race last weekend (Marco Sorensen, Mitch Evans, Richie Stanaway, Simon Trummer, Nathanaël Berthon, Zoel Amberg).
1 GP2 Champion who has won les 24 Heures du Mans race: Nico Hülkenberg
