• GP2, Turkish Grand Prix, Race 1

Maldonado becomes fifth winner in five races

Pastor Maldonado celebrates his first win of the season © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Turkish GP2 round

• Drivers:
• Pastor Maldonado
• |
• Luiz Razia

The open nature of this year's GP competition was underlined by Pastor Maldonado's victory in the first GP2 event of the weekend in Istanbul, the fifth different winner in as many races.

Maldonado's Rapax overtook Davide Valescchi (iSport), who had been on pole, at the start and was never challenged, even having the luxury of slowing down in the final stages to win by 17.9 seconds.

There was a tougher battle for second as Valescchi and Sergio Perez (Addax) swapped positions, Perez using a pit stop to overtake only for Valescchi to catch and retake Perez on the 26th lap. Things continued to go downhill for Perez as he was in turn caught by Sam Bird (ART) for the third podium spot.

Giedo van der Garde (Addax) took fifth with Luiz Razia (Rappax) in sixth. Michael Herck took seventh in his DPR after his team-mate Giacomo Ricci and Racing Engineering's Christian Vietoris collided and left the track as they battled each other for seventh.

The day-to-forget award went to Oliver Turvey who had a poor start, was then hit with a drive-through penalty for illegally blocking an attempted overtake, and as he was in the pit lane serving that punishment he was found to be speeding and slapped with another drive-through penalty. Unsurprisingly, he finished down the field in 15th.

Vladimir Arabadzhiev's Coloni careered into a tyrewall with two laps left and the team's day got worse almost immediately when Alberto Valerio spun and stalled. Earlier, Charles Pic and Jules Bianchi had taken each other out when they collided on turn 3.

Championship Standings

	Driver	Points
1	Pastor Maldonado	26
1	Sergio Pérez	22
3	Dani Clos	15
4	Luiz Razia	14
5	Giedo Van Der Garde	12
6	Sam Bird	10

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