GP2: Gasly finally ends win drought at Silverstone

Red Bull junior Pierre Gasly finally scored his first GP2 Series win in a gripping feature race at Silverstone.

The Frenchman, who ends a win drought stretching back to his Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup title-winning season in 2013, made great use of Prema Racing's strategy and has now leapt from eighth in the points into a narrow series lead.

Gasly, teammate Antonio Giovinazzi and MP Motorsport's Oliver Rowland were the best-placed three drivers on the grid to start the race on soft tires, before making an early switch to hard Pirellis. In a race that featured no safety cars – it ran almost without incident and everyone finished – that proved to be the quicker choice.

Gasly ran second in the early stages behind the polewinning Racing Engineering car of Norman Nato, and had just been passed for second place by Nato's team-mate Jordan King when he dived into the pits. Instantly, Gasly started lapping quicker than his compatriot Nato, sometimes by more than three seconds.

Crucially, he passed a group of late-stopping tailenders for position without losing too much time, and was comfortably ahead of fellow early stoppers Rowland, Luca Ghiotto – who made terrific progress from the back of the grid – and Giovinazzi as the race entered its closing stages. All Gasly had to do was cruise to victory, while attentions turned to the battle for second.

Giovinazzi, who had sensational lasting pace on the hard tires, demoted the Trident car of Ghiotto, then reeled in Rowland, who repelled a series of attacks until Giovinazzi drove straight around the outside of the Brit at Luffield on the final lap to complete a Prema one-two. Rowland, who was shown a black-and-white warning flag for track limits, is to see the stewards after the race.

Red Bull Ring feature-race winner Mitch Evans had the best pace of those who made the late switch to softs. The Campos Racing man passed Nato for sixth, then got ahead of ART Grand Prix's Nobuharu Matsushita for fifth before grabbing fourth from Ghiotto into Stowe on the penultimate lap. Ghiotto, Matsushita, Nato and the charging King – who lost time with a delay on his right-rear wheel at his stop – finished in very close formation behind.

The final points were scored by Russian Time duo Raffaele Marciello and Artem Markelov. The Russian did plenty of overtaking on his hard tires, including a double pass on Marciello and Evans into Stowe, but lost time at his pit stop. Both of them passed Nicholas Latifi in the late stages, the DAMS driver looking very much a podium contender in the early stages before fading.

RESULTS - 29 LAPS:

Originally on Autosport.com