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BAHRAIN, RACE 1: ONIDI TAKES EIGHT PLACE AND POLE POSITION FOR TOMORROW’S RACE 2
Fabio Onidi and Scuderia Coloni flew to an amazing P8 finish today in the first round of the Bahrain GP2 weekend, securing pole position for tomorrow’s Sprint Race. It was an amazing race for the Italian driver, who was starting from eight row of the grid after yesterday’s qualifying. Determined to give his best to finish into the top ten, Fabio made a perfect start and at the end of first lap he had already passed from P16 to P11. After focusing on saving his tyres in yesterday’s sessions, Onidi today was free to push and immediately started making pressure on the drivers ahead. On lap two he passed Richelmi for P10 with a good inside move, while two laps later he was already ninth after passing Clos. Fabio did his mandatory pit-stop on lap 11 together with the majority of the field, and emerged from the pit-lane in 11th place. A few laps later the race was neutralized with a Safety-Car for a contact between Cecotto and Nasr that promoted Onidi to P9 again, and at the restart Fabio restarted his charge: in just a few corners he was on the gearbox of Clos and passed the Spaniard for eight place with twelve laps to go. From then on Onidi decided to control the race and crossed the finish line in P8, so taking pole position for tomorrow’s Sprint Race. Stefano Coletti was aiming to a similar performance, but his race was ended by a contact with Van der Garde on lap 2. Stefano was on the outside line and already on the kerb when the Spaniard decided to go wide abruptly, leading to an inevitable crash. It was a pity because Coletti’s start had been also stunning, bringing him to P14 after starting from P21 on the grid.
Fabio Onidi: “It was an amazing race: I got a perfect start and then the car was quick and well balanced, so pushing and overtaking was really easy. I want to say thanks to the Scuderia Coloni staff for their hard work because I was really happy with the car they gave me today. I definitely wanted a good result, and that’s why I decided to stop pushing when I was P8. The gap I had on the drivers behind was enough to allow me to back-off a bit and that’s what I did, finishing the race and getting pole position for tomorrow was too important to take any risk. Now we have to focus on tomorrow, the pole position gives me a bit of goosebumps but I hope that my start will be as good as today!”.
Stefano Coletti: “I was fighting with Van der Garde, I had just passed him two corners earlier when he decided to fight back. I was aware of where he was so I decided to stay wide, but despite that we made contact. I was already on the kerb, there was no further room for me to go even wider, what happened is really unfortunate. It’s a pity because my start had been great, I had already made up something like seven places, and a good result was in my reach. We’ll push as hard as possible tomorrow and see what happens”.
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