Bridgestone Motorsport's 2010 Valencia GP2 Series Report

Pastor Maldonado (Rapax) and Marcus Ericsson (Super Nova Racing) both took race victories in Valencia on Bridgestone's soft specification dry tyre.

Marcus Ericsson Super Nova Racing Credit: Bridgestone Motorsport

Despite the high temperatures experienced during the weekend, Bridgestone's GP2 tyres performed well in terms of heat resistance, lap time performance and consistency.

Saturday's 30 lap feature race provided Maldonado with his second victory of the season, the Venezuelan finishing 8.2 seconds ahead of Jules Bianchi (ART Grand Prix). The opening lap was incident filled with accidents at turn two and four bringing out an early safety car. After the racing resumed, pole sitter Sergio Perez (Barwa Addax) spun and fell to the back of the field after contact with Davide Valsecchi (iSport International). Sam Bird finished third behind his ART Grand Prix team-mate, and Maldonado set the quickest lap.

Sunday's sprint race also had early incidents and a safety car, the race being shortened to 22 laps following a big accident involving Josef Kral (Super Nova Racing). Race winner Ericsson overtook Michael Herck (DPR) before the first corner to lead throughout, claiming his first ever GP2 Series podium. Giedo van der Garde (Barwa Addax) finished second, with Herck third. Maldonado was awarded the point for fastest lap.

Maldonado continues to lead the drivers' championship standings with 42 points, followed by Dani Clos (Racing Engineering) and van der Garde both on 27. Rapax leads the teams' championship with 62 points, Barwa Addax Team in second place on 46. ART Grand Prix now takes third place with 36 points.

The GP2 Series will be heading to Silverstone next, where Bridgestone's medium compound dry tyre has been allocated for the fifth round of the championship which takes place on 9-11 July.

"Congratulations to Pastor Maldonado for winning the feature race here in Valencia. He did well to control the level of tyre degradation, particularly at the beginning of the race when a heavy fuel load can potentially increase the degradation of the tyres. During the second half of the race, after the pit stops, the track conditions had improved substantially, the degradation and wear rates of the tyres were as expected, and with low quantities of fuel also, the lap times from the drivers were very consistent. Congratulations to Marcus Ericsson for his win in the sprint race on Sunday. It was another eventful race, and we wish Josef Kral all the best for a speedy recovery following his accident."

Temperatures  Ambient  Track    Weather
Saturday race 27C      45C-42C  Sunny
Sunday race   25C-26C  34C-38C  Sunny

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