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Race report

First win of the season for iSport at Spa

Podium: race winner Marcus Ericsson

Podium: race winner Marcus Ericsson

XPB Images

This weekend saw driver Marcus Ericsson get his first win of the season, and his first for the team, in Saturday’s Feature Race at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.

A wet start to Friday saw difficult driving conditions in Free Practice, but both drivers managed the conditions well, with Ericsson finishing 6th and Jolyon Palmer 12th.

The treacherous conditions remained for Qualifying, but again both drivers handled the conditions fantastically well, with Palmer continuously improving his pace, crossing line 5th. Ericsson was also flying, taking provisional pole in the final laps, however losing out in his final lap, finishing 4th.

Podium: race winner Marcus Ericsson
Podium: race winner Marcus Ericsson

Photo by: xpb.cc

Ericsson went onto dominate the Feature Race on Saturday, which saw the driver finish a massive 11.5 seconds of the pack. With a fast getaway the Swedish driver made ground quickly, avoiding Melker’s dramatic crash at Eau Rouge. With both drivers making their pit stops under the safety car, both were in good positions at the restart, with Ericsson out in front and Palmer lying 6th.

Unfortunately for Palmer, Razia clipped the wing of the No.8 car at La Source resulting in an early end to Palmers’s race. Meanwhile Ericsson left everyone behind to stay well ahead of the pack, putting in some flying laps, resulting in him claiming his first win of the season at the finish line.

The Sprint Race on Sunday morning resulted in more points for the team, with Ericsson continuing his successfully weekend with a 4th place finish. Palmer also had a fantastic race, starting from 22nd, where he battled his way through the pack to finish 10th.

Paul Jackson – Team Principal: “Finally Marcus got the win he deserved and has threatened for so long. Both drivers had good pace throughout the event and qualified well in 4th and 5th and had the potential for a double podium. Unfortunately, Jolyon was eliminated from race one when he and Razia made contact during an overtaking manoeuvre.

Race two started with an incident packed first lap which caused Marcus to drop several places avoiding accidents, but he fought his way back to fourth at the end to score a very healthy 33 points for the weekend. Jolyon made rapid progress from 22nd on the grid and was running in 8th place until the last lap when he lost a couple of places whilst fighting in a very tight bunch of cars, finishing the race a creditable 10th.

Whilst it was a great weekend for Marcus, it was frustrating for Jolyon not to score when he had the same raw pace as Marcus.

We now move straight to Monza and hope to see both cars realise their full potential and score some good points”

iSport now move up into 6th position in the Team Championship, with Marcus Ericsson lying 8th and Jolyon Palmer 11th in the Drivers’ Championship.

The team are now in Monza for Round 11 of the GP2 Series taking place this weekend.

Source: iSport

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