GP2: Nato controls Monza sprint race

Norman Nato claimed his first GP2 win since the Barcelona season opener in May in the Monza sprint race.

Pierre Gasly added a little to his championship lead by battling through to second ahead of Prema teammate and title rival Antonio Giovinazzi.

Racing Engineering teammates Nato and Jordan King had burst through to first and second in a busy start, as reverse grid polesitter Mitch Evans got away slowly and then banged wheels with Luca Ghiotto on the charge from the line.

Oliver Rowland then ran into the back of Ghiotto into the Roggia chicane, ending the Italian's race, with Evans taken out at the same moment as Gustav Malja clattered over the inside curb and into him. Giovinazzi picked up wing damage from Malja in the same mess.

While Nato controlled the race from there, King began to lose pace. Gasly had emerged from the first corner in third and overtook King for second approaching half-distance. The pair ran wheel to wheel from the entry to the first chicane, through the Curva Grande and into the Roggia before Gasly could make the move stick. Nato was three seconds clear by then and Gasly had no answer for him, finishing 4.3s behind his countryman.

Giovinazzi passed Malja and King to secure third, with Malja fourth on the road but down to ninth in the results when a 10s penalty for taking out Evans was applied.

Artem Markelov overtook Alex Lynn and Nobuharu Matsushita to claim fifth, with Lynn beating Matsushita for sixth in a photo finish after a last-lap Parabolica move.

Rowland was also penalized for the first lap tangles, dropping him to 11th behind Nicolas Latifi, Malja and Marvin Kirchhofer.

Saturday runner-up Raffaele Marciello couldn't get his car off the dummy grid and had to start from the pitlane, joining Arthur Pic, who was penalized for sending Sergio Canamasas into a roll in race one. Pic did best in the battle through the traffic, reaching 12th while Marciello was 15th.

Sergey Sirotkin's title hopes now look remote after he had to park his ART car with a gearbox failure early on.

Originally on Autosport.com