Kevin Ceccon needed no time to get the right pace in GP2. At just his second race in the best feeder series to F1 the Italian driver fought on a par with his much more experienced rivals. The Italian driver ended his race in 15th place, showing an impressive pace and managing the tyres like a very experienced driver, something that allowed him to be very aggressive in the closing stages, passing rivals and finishing only 1” adift from P12.Just as yesterday the race started with a caution period, this time caused by a crash at the start between Bianchi and Van der Garde. Ceccon was 23rd at the end of lap 1, but he kept his mind cool and drove on the strategy he had agreed with the team: controlled pace, very easy on the tyres for the first half, and then full attack mode in the second half of the race. Ceccon sticked himself to the tail of Ws by Renault champion Mikhail Aleshin for the first laps, and then passed him on lap 14, starting the chase for Palmer and Mirocha. At this time Kevin was quicker than the drivers in the mid-pack and closed quickly on his opponents, yet keeping a margin to nurse his tyres: on lap 21 he avoided a crash between Filippi and Razia and then passed Palmer, while on the penultimate lap he also passed Mirocha for P15. Thanks to his clever tyres management Kevin arrived in the last laps with fresher rubber compared to his rivals, and on the last lap he was 2” quicker than Leal and Cecotto, crossing the line just 0.1 adrift of the south-american duo.
Kevin Ceccon: "If yesterday finishing the race was my only priority, today I was a bit more aggressive and I had more fun. Together with the team we planned a strategy to make my tyres last longer, in order to have an advantage at the end of the race. It was very effective because I managed to make some good passes and with another half lap I could have overtaken three more cars. The Safety-Car didn't help us because without those 5 laps at low speed our rivals would have started suffering from tyre wear much earlier, and we would have finished in a better position, but I'm happy anyway. I'm at my second race in the series and I already showed that I can fight on a par with most of the GP2 drivers, and in this weekend I gathered a lot of useful experience on the car and on the race strategy. Now I'm really excited and looking forward to Monaco, but I know that learning must be my primary aim".
Paolo Coloni: "I’m really satisfied with what Kevin did in this weekend. He is very young, so getting a too emotional approach from him was a possibility we had to take into account. Anyway this wasn’t the case at all, he was very cool minded and finished both races with no mistakes at all, which was exactly what we asked him. In Race 2 he boasted a great pace, he made clean passes, and he managed his tyre like a very experienced drivers. If the race was 2 laps more, he would have passed easily at least another three cars, so I think he really did an amazing job for a rookie".
