Hungaroring, 29 July 2017: Giuliano Alesi has backed up his Silverstone Race 2 victory with a lights to flag win in this morning’s GP3 Series Race 2 at the Hungaroring, taking the lead at turn 1 and controlling the pace all the way to the flag to lead Trident’s first 1-2-3-4 ahead of Ryan Tveter, Kevin Jörg and Dorian Bocolacci. The only Indian driver Arjun Maini finished 9th.
The race got underway with gloriously sunny conditions, and when the lights went out polesitter Tveter made a good getaway and pushed across the track to cover teammate Jörg: unfortunately the American ran too deep at turn 1 to cover the Swiss driver, handing the inside line to Alesi who shot through and into the lead ahead of the pair and Boccolacci as they headed down to turn 2.

Further back Nirei Fukuzumi spun at turn 3 and Leonardo Pulcini ran deep at turn 4, forcing both men to return to the pits, but up ahead Alessio Lorandi was determined to ruin the Trident party and overtook Boccolacci at the final turn before tearing off after the leading trio. But the pace at the front was to prove too much for him: the Italian ran wide over the huge kerbs at turn 11 on lap 7 before stopping with a puncture a few corners later.

Nevertheless the pressure remained on Boccolacci from behind as a train of drivers formed in his mirrors, only briefly delayed by a VSC to remove Bruno Baptista’s halted car from turn 6 two laps later, with George Russell capitalising on a strong race to date and a sharp restart to mug Raoul Hyman for P9. The train started to lose carriages when yesterday’s winner Jack Aitken pushed through at turn 4 before jumping the kerbs and coming back, only to also retire with a puncture on the next lap.

Another VSC period slowed the race on lap 14, the result of yet another puncture, this time for Julien Falchero, with Russell taking the opportunity to pit for fresh rubber. But with the laps running down Alesi controlled his pace to lead Tveter to the flag but just 0.6 seconds, with Jörg 2 seconds back for his first podium and Boccolacci a similar margin behind to round out the all Trident top 4. Anthoine Hubert was unable to spoil the party and finished in P5, just ahead of Niko Kari, with Hyman making up for yesterday’s disappointments with a strong race to 7th, just ahead of Campos teammate Marcos Siebert.

Despite the lack of points today Russell (92 points) maintained his lead in the drivers’ championship ahead of ART teammates Aitken (83), Hubert (78) and Fukuzumi (72), with Alesi’s win allowing him to sneak past Lorandi by 66 points to 63, while in the teams’ championship ART remains aloof from their rivals, leading Trident by 311 points to 152, with Jenzer in third on 99 points as they head into the summer break ahead of the next round at Spa-Francorchamps.

Provisional Race 2 Classification

Driver

Team

Giuliano Alesi

Trident

Ryan Tveter

Trident

Kevin Jörg

Trident

Dorian Boccolacci

Trident

Anthoine Hubert

ART Grand Prix

Niko Kari

Arden International

Raoul Hyman

Campos Racing

Marcos Siebert

Campos Racing

Arjun Maini

Jenzer Motorsport

Leonardo Pulcini

Arden International

Matthieu Vaxivière

DAMS

George Russell

ART Grand Prix

Tatiana Calderon

DAMS

Not Classified

Julien Falchero

Campos Racing

Jack Aitken

ART Grand Prix

Bruno Baptista

DAMS

Alessio Lorandi

Jenzer Motorsport

Steijn Schothorst

Arden International

Nirei Fukuzumi

ART Grand Prix

Fastest Lap

George Russell

 1:33.715 on lap 16