Bahrain’s motorsport fans will be able to enjoy twice the action in the GP2 Series this month at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.
Back-to-back rounds in GP2’s 2012 championship will be held at “The Home of Motorsport in the Middle East” over successive weekends.
The first event will take place in support of this year’s Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix from April 20 to 22 in Sakhir. It will mark the second round of the season.
GP2 will then stage round three the very next weekend on April 27 and 28. It will be a stand-alone event and it will mark the only time this season that the GP2 Series will be racing at the same track twice.
There are a total of 12 meetings in this year’s campaign. Each will be held in support of a Formula One Grand Prix, with exception to the third round which is being held in the Kingdom.
Heading into the Bahrain Grand Prix event, Luiz Razia of Arden International and James Calado of Lotus GP have a win apiece after sharing the honours in the season-opener held in support of the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur.
Razia won the feature race ahead of former GP2 Asia Series champion Davide Valsecchi, who claimed the runner-up spot for DAMS. Max Chilton of Carlin Motorsport was third.
Calado and Esteban Gutierrez then enjoyed a fantastic one-two for Lotus GP in the sprint race, with Valsecchi’s teammate Felipe Nasr coming in third.
DAMS come to Bahrain occupying first place on the Teams’ Championship standings with 42 points, followed closely by Lotus GP with 37 and Arden with 31 in third with 31 markers.
A 13-team, 26-driver grid will be forming at BIC later this month. Apart from the podium placers from the first round, some of the other top names expected to make an impact this year are Caterham Racing tandem Giedo van der Garde and Rodolfo Gonzalez, iSport International’s Jolyon Palmer and Marcus Ericsson, and the Barwa Addax tandem of Johnny Cecotto, Jr. and Josef Král.
GP2 is widely accepted as the strongest Formula One feeder category. More than half of the Formula One grid is made up of drivers who have excelled in GP2. In fact, more than 50 have received an opportunity to drive a Formula One car as a result of their GP2 experience.
GP2 will be one of three support series at this year’s Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. The others are the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, which will be holding its opening round of the 2012 season, and the Bahrain-based WGA Supercars Middle East Championship, which will be staging its sixth and final meeting of the year.
Tickets for this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix are still available but are selling out fast. They can be purchased at several locations across Bahrain, including at BIC’s Welcome Centre located at the circuit entrance in Sakhir; at the BIC stands in Seef Mall and Bahrain City Centre; and at the all-new BIC counters at Batelco Retail Shops in Arad, Hamad Town and at The Centre in Nuwaidrat.