Jenzer Motorsport driver Pal Varhaug pulled away from the rest of the field at Circuit de Catalunya to take a historic victory in the first ever GP3 Series race.
Young Pal Varhaug started his GP3 Series season with a bang today in Barcelona for the opening of the GP3 Series first season -long pressure After difficult conditions during qualifying this morning, Race one was a much different story.
When the lights turned green at Circuit de Catalunya for the inaugural first GP3 race, the track temperature was 33 degrees and the sun was brightly shining. Thirty young drivers starting their first ever GP3 race was always going to be exciting, and sure enough there was plenty of action on the first lap, including a couple of casualties at the start.
After the lights turned green Daniel Morad flew across the starting grid, unfortunately for the rest of the field it was sideways, and a slow starting pole sitter Nigel Melker ended up a casualty of the carnage. By the end of the first lap Daniel Morad and Nigel Melker were in pits. While Varhaug took the lead and tried to pull away from his closest rivals, Esteban Gutierrez also had a storming start and by the end of the first lap had moved up from seventh to third and from then on spent a frustrating fifteen laps behind Wickens who was busy trying to reduce the gap between him and Varhaug.
The Canadian put in a strong performance to hold off the charging had to settle for third. By the end of lap four there were more wounded; Michael Christensen and Felipe Guimaraes had a and Pablo Sanchez Lopez also touched putting each other out of the remainder of the race. The top three were now status quo with Varhaug holding his own at the front of the field to take the victory. The young Norwegian put in a fine performance at the front ending the race 1.563 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.
In fourth place, Dean Smith had a relatively lonely race 3.276 seconds ahead of GP3 newcomer Jean- race winning teammate, but still finished in a strong sixth spot.
Further down the field Alexander Rossi, who started at the back of the grid, put in an impressive performance making his way up into 15th by the end of the first lap. He carried on pushing eventually finishing 8th on the reversed grid. //
POS NO DRIVER ENTRANT
1 23 Pal VARHAUG Jenzer Motorsport 2 4 Robert WICKENS Status Grand Prix 3 2 Esteban GUTIERREZ Art Grand Prix 4 15 Dean SMITH Carlin 5 28 Jean-Eric VERGNE Tech 1 Racing 6 24 Simon TRUMMER Jenzer Motorsport 7 16 Lucas FORESTI Carlin 8 1 Alexander ROSSI Art Grand Prix 9 7 James JAKES Manor Racing 10 21 Miki MONRAS MW Arden 11 27 Daniel JUNCADELLA Tech 1 Racing 12 3 Pedro NUNES Art Grand Prix 13 25 Nico MULLER Jenzer Motorsport 14 30 Oliver OAKES Atech CRS GP 15 11 Renger VAN DER ZANDE RSC Mucke Motorsport 16 19 Mirko BORTOLOTTI Addax Team 17 12 Tobias HEGEWALD RSC Mucke Motorsport 18 22 Leonardo CORDEIRO MW Arden 19 5 Ivan LUKASHEVICH Status Grand Prix 20 8 Rio HARYANTO Manor Racing 21 9 Adrian QUAIFE-HOBBS Manor Racing 22 26 Doru SECHELARIU Tech 1 Racing 29 Patrick REITERER Atech CRS GP 14 Josef NEWGARDEN Carlin 18 Pablo SANCHEZ LOPEZ Addax Team 20 Michael CHRISTENSEN MW Arden 10 Nigel MELKER RSC Mucke Motorsport 6 Daniel MORAD Status Grand Prix 17 Felipe GUIMARAES Addax Team 31 Vittorio GHIRELLI Atech CRS GP
