Ricci sprints to maiden victory

Giacomo Ricci has claimed his first GP2 main series win with a dominant display of speed and aggression to lead home Christian Vietoris and Davide Valsecchi in this morning’s sprint race in Budapest.

The Italian’s teammate Michael Herck, with whom he shared the front row, could not pull away on the formation lap and had to be pushed into the pitlane, removing one challenge for Ricci: when the lights went out he made a strong getaway and held off a fast charging Jerome d’Ambrosio into turn one for a lead which he would not relinquish.

Behind the front pair were the Addax teammates split by Christian Vietoris, who went one better with a smooth pass on Giedo van der Garde into turn four. Behind him Sergio Perez was having trouble with a fast moving Valsecchi: the pair came together and the Mexican came off worse, spinning in retirement and being tagged by Pastor Maldonado for his troubles.

The Venezuelan was soon shown the black and orange flag for his broken front wing, which rapidly turned into a straight black version when he failed to return to the pits, but he wasn’t the only man to have troubles today: yesterday’s polesitter Sam Bird was making up for his earlier problems with a storming drive up to P7 before a suspected hydraulic issue capped off a miserable weekend for the Briton.

Even more heartbreak was to come on lap 11 when d’Ambrosio’s certain podium finish was denied as his car ground to a halt also on suspected hydraulic issues in the pits: the mechanics swarmed over the car but his race was run as his former rival Ricci ground out the laps until the chequered flag.

Ricci’s run to the line saw him cross seven seconds ahead of Vietoris, who had a solid run for his second P2 of the weekend, with Valsecchi’s race long pressure finally telling with one lap to go as he got a nice run out of turn one and slipped inside van der Garde at the next corner for the podium denied to him at yesterday’s start.

Oliver Turvey followed the pair across the line one second later, with Luca Filippi claiming the final point for sixth, but all eyes were on countryman Ricci for what was one of the most popular victories of the season.