Good Sixth For Parente In Bahrain's Race 1

Scuderia Coloni was really looking forward to the first race of the Sakhir weekend, and was rewarded with a really good result celebrating Alvaro Parente's 6th place and a good race by Bratt, in which the Brit driver managed to climb the race classification finishing 16th after starting from the tenth row. At the start, Parente wasn't perfect and slipped from fifth to 8th position; anyway, his pace was so good that he immediately managed to stick to frontrunners, attacking and passing Perez and then Turvey, climbing back to 6th. At the pit-stop, a great job by the team allowed the Portuguese driver to get closer to Pic and Ricci, and when back on track Alvaro keeped pushing hard to close the gap. While the Italian and the Frenchman were fighting for fourth, Alvaro managed to reduce the gap to 2", keeping his position for the finish of the race. The sixth place means points at the first race with Scuderia Coloni, and the third spot on the reversed grid for tomorrow's race.

Alvaro Parente, (POR, Scuderia Coloni). leads Charles Pic (FRA, Arden International) Credit: Drew Gibson/GP2 Media

Also Bratt, starting 20th, did a very good race: the brit was in "attack mood", a strategy that leaded him to some mistakes after a very good start. Anyway, after the pit-stops, he managed his tyres very well, becoming quicker and quicker and overtaking four cars. In the last laps he had the same pace of the leading pack, and was able to close the gap on Piscopo to just 1". The laptimes of the second part of the race do give the team good hopes for Will in tomorrow's race.

Paolo Coloni: "We are fully satisfied after today's race. Apart from a difficult start, Parente showed immediately how quick he is, recovering in a few laps and posting the 4th fastest lap of the race. It's only its first race with us, he has to gain confidence with the team and with the car, so he really did a great race. Also Will was good, and this is the confirmation that with some more luck in yesterday's qualifying he could have aimed for a great result. I'd also like to say thanks to our guys, in the pit-stops they did a wonderful job".

Alvaro Parente: "I had a bad start, but my reaction to that was perfect. I made up some positions immediately, but then the tyre wear came a bit too early, sixth was really the best I could do. Now I hope we can fix that for tomorrow's race, starting from the third spot on the grid we have the chance for a great result".

Will Bratt: "Despite the finishing position today's race was one of the best so far for me in the GP2 Asia Series. My start was good, then there were a few mistakes where I went too deep going into the corners and ran wide, which lost me some places. Then after the pit-stop I settled down for the rest of the race. This part was very good because I was able to manage my tyres well and I overtook 4 more cars. With some more laps we could have overtaken even more at the end, definitely one and possibly another three cars".

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