BUBLEWICZ MAKES IT TWO ON THE BOUNCE

Kowalska was the first driver to make a pit stop, fitting new intermediates on lap 12. The rest of the field followed her in the next few laps - Renault choosing to double stack, but losing no time - but Woldi’s early stop saw Kowalska jump ahead of Aslan and Li. SSF1 left their cars out longest, and suffered as a result. After only a few laps of the second stint, the rain stopped, and the track began to dry. This saw a superb piece of tactical play from Subaru, as Dupont timed his attack on Bublewicz perfectly for the activation of DRS, and took the lead. Prost was doing everything he could to keep Grala out of his DRS, and was successful in doing so. 

 

The first jumper for dries were Andretti, with Rossi and Lessard pitting. However, they were a few laps too early, which ended up costing Rossi a sixth place finish. Mortara timed the jump perfectly, which saw him jump from the midfield queue into the podium battle, while Dupont and Prost pitted together, but selected opposite tyres (medium and soft). Bublewicz’s lead was enough that he could pit two laps later and still keep the lead. Mortara was now fighting Grala for fourth place, with the pair closing on Prost. As the pair approached the Renault’s DRS, Prost was called into the pits, rejoining just behind hard-shod team-mate Thomas Li, whose DRS allowed Prost a helping hand on his undercut. Mortara stopped the following lap and had the same help from Li, putting him and Prost right together. When Dupont stopped the following lap, his longer stint had erased his gap to the others, and he quickly lost his net-podium place.

 

It became clear that 5395 and Kowalska were attempting to run fifteen laps on the medium tyres until the end of the race. This left Grala in position to take a debut win, leading Bublewicz with over six seconds to fit in just seven laps; the Polish driver quickly carved into the American’s lead, passing him with two laps to go. Dupont, Mortara and Prost were not so lucky. They pushed on the last lap to catch Grala, but it was not enough. Prost managed his KERS best to claim third place, with Mortara using his to get a slingshot out of the final corner to pass Dupont as he ran out of fuel on the line - a sad end to a fantastic race for the Frenchman.

 

Bublewicz extends his championship lead with the result, ahead of Prost, with Grala leaping up to third. Andretti’s points score jumps them up to 7th in the standings as we head to the Spanish iGP.