The 2013 Monaco GP2 Series round was a pair of motor races held on 24 and 25 May 2013, at the Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monaco as part of the GP2 Series. It was the fourth round of the 2013 GP2 Series and was run in support of the 2013 Monaco Grand Prix. The first race, a 42-lap feature event, was won by Russian Time driver Sam Bird who started from third position. Kevin Ceccon finished second for the Trident Racing team and Arden International driver Mitch Evans took third. Stefano Coletti of the Rapax team won the shorter 30-lap sprint race from MP Motorsport's Adrian Quaife-Hobbs in second and Evans third.

Johnny Cecotto Jr. won the pole position for the feature race by setting the fastest lap in qualifying. His lost the lead to teammate Evans heading into the first corner and understeered into the barrier while holding off Fabio Leimer. Jolyon Palmer spun in avoidance blocking passage to the turn and the race was stopped because 15 cars were stranded. Evans led the restarted race but Bird passed him after the pit stop phase. Bird opened up a lengthy advantage over the rest of the field to win. Quaife-Hobbs started from pole position in the sprint race and kept the lead until Coletti passed him on the third lap. Although his lead diminished because of tyre wear Coletti led the event's remaining laps to claim the victory.

Bird's feature race victory was his—and Russian Time's—second of the season and Coletti's sprint race win meant he became the first Monegasque driver to win on the streets of Monaco since Louis Chiron in 1931. The race results increased Coletti's Drivers' Championship lead to 24 points over Felipe Nasr. Bird's feature race win gained him two positions to move to third while Leimer fell to fourth. Rapax took the Teams' Championship lead from Carlin and Russian Time moved to third with Racing Engineering fourth with seven rounds left in the season.

Background

The 2013 Monaco GP2 Series round was the fourth of eleven scheduled events in 2013. It was held on 24 and 25 May at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo and supported the 2013 Monaco Grand Prix. Tyre supplier Pirelli brought the red-banded supersoft and yellow-banded soft dry tyres to the race.

Before the two races, Rapax driver Stefano Coletti led the Drivers' Championship with 93 points, 17 ahead of Felipe Nasr in second, who in turn, was a further 18 points in front of Fabio Leimer in third. Robin Frijns was fourth on 33 points and Sam Bird was four points behind him in fifth place. Carlin led the Teams' Championship on 107 points; Rapax had a small deficit of six points in second and Racing Engineering were third with 64 points. Hilmer Motorsports were fourth on 56 points and Russian Time were one point in fifth.

For the round, there were 26 drivers were entered and all of them piloted the Dallara GP2/11 car fielded by 13 teams of two competitors each. After a strong start to the season, Frijns confirmed on Twitter that he would contest the Monaco round as his contract with Hilmer Motorsports was on a race-by-race basis.

Practice and qualifying

One 30-minute practice session was held on Thursday before the two races. Bird, who called the Circuit de Monaco his favourite track in the GP2 Series, lapped fastest at 1:21.512 on super-soft tyres, 0.057 seconds faster than Russian Time teammate Tom Dillmann in second. Mitch Evans, Carlin's Jolyon Palmer, Marcus Ericsson of DAMS, Arden International's Johnny Cecotto Jr., Leimer, Nasr, Rio Haryanto of Addax and James Calado made up positions two to ten. Only minor off-track excursions were reported with DAMS's Stéphane Richelmi spinning at La Rascasse corner and stalled in his attempt to continue driving. Nasr narrowly avoided hitting the barrier at the Swimming Pool complex and Coletti, Leimer, Calado and Kevin Giovesi for Lazarus all ran deep onto the run-off areas at various points during practice.

Friday afternoon's qualifying session ran for 30-minutes. As in 2012, qualifying was divided into two groups of 13 cars, with odd numbered vehicles in Group A and even numbered cars in Group B. The starting order was determined by the fastest overall driver in either group. Most cars had the soft types equipped at the start and most made pit stops for set-up alterations with some installing supersoft tyres. Cecotto clinched his first pole position of the season, the second of his career, and at Monte Carlo with a time of 1:21.141. He was joined on the grid's front row by teammate Evans who led Group B; his best time was 0.016 seconds slower than Cecotto. On his final timed lap, Bird was fastest in the first of the lap, but lost six tenths in the final and was third. Leimer drifted sideways at the final corner on his fastest lap but avoided hitting the barrier en route to fourth. Kevin Ceccon (Trident) took fifth. Sixth-placed Palmer's first attempt at going faster proved unsuccessful as he encountered Richelmi in the final sector but took it at his next attempt before Leimer demoted him down the order.

Julián Leal (Racing Engineering) took seventh after encountering traffic on his final lap and needed to pass one car to record his fastest time. Dillmann qualified in eighth place. Nasr set the early pace in Group B before settling for ninth and Frijns took tenth. Ericsson in 11th was the fastest driver not to qualify in the top ten. He led Group B early on but was demoted as the session progressed. He was followed by Sergio Canamasas (Caterham Racing) in 12th and Rossi in 13th. Coletti was another Group B early pace setter but began from 14th position. Haryanto qualified in 15th but was demoted ten places on the grid for causing an avoidable accident at the season's previous round in Catalunya. Hence Nathanaël Berthon (Trident) inherited the place and was followed by Calado, Richelmi and Daniël de Jong (MP Motorsport). 20th place qualifier René Binder (Lazarus) incurred a three-place grid penalty for impeding Canamasas during qualifying. Giovesi began in 20th with Daniel Abt (ART Grand Prix), Simon Trummer (Rapax) and Jake Rosenzweig (Addax) in 21st to 23rd positions. Lancaster started from 24th after a spin at Sainte Dévote turn necessitated yellow flags to be waved in the area. The final position in the field was taken by Adrian Quaife-Hobbs (MP Motorsport) whose fastest time was 2.2 seconds slower than Cecotto.

Qualifying classification Group A Driver Team Time 1 5 Johnny Cecotto Jr. Arden International 1:21.141 1 2 11 Sam Bird Russian Time 1:21.509 3 3 21 Kevin Ceccon Trident Racing 1:21.986 5 4 7 Julián Leal Racing Engineering 1:22.092 7 5 9 Felipe Nasr Carlin 1:22.163 9 6 1 Marcus Ericsson DAMS 1:22.349 11 7 15 Alexander Rossi Caterham Racing 1:22.511 13 8 17 Rio Haryanto Barwa Addax Team 1:22.589 25 9 3 James Calado ART Grand Prix 1:22.677 16 10 27 Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 1:22.943 18 11 25 Kevin Giovesi Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:23.006 19 12 19 Simon Trummer Rapax 1:23.017 21 13 23 Jon Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 1:23.443 24 Source:

Group B Driver Team Time 1 6 Mitch Evans Arden International 1:21.157 2 2 8 Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering 1:21.185 4 3 10 Jolyon Palmer Carlin 1:21.198 6 4 12 Tom Dillmann Russian Time 1:21.387 8 5 22 Robin Frijns Hilmer Motorsport 1:21.418 10 6 14 Sergio Canamasas Caterham Racing 1:21.522 12 7 18 Stefano Coletti Rapax 1:21.658 14 8 20 Nathanaël Berthon Trident Racing 1:22.245 15 9 2 Stéphane Richelmi DAMS 1:22.317 17 10 24 René Binder Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:22.376 22 11 4 Daniel Abt ART Grand Prix 1:22.716 20 12 16 Jake Rosenzweig Barwa Addax Team 1:22.842 23 13 26 Adrian Quaife-Hobbs MP Motorsport 1:23.328 26 Source: Notes: — Rio Haryanto received a ten-place grid penalty for causing a collision at the previous race. — René Binder was penalised three places for impeding Canamasas during qualifying.

Races The first race was held over or 60 minutes (whichever came first) and the regulations required drivers to make one pit stop. The first ten finishers scored points, with two given to the fastest lap holder. The grid for the second race was determined by the finishing order of the first but with the first eight drivers in reverse order of where they finished. It was run for or 45 minutes (whichever came first). In contrast to the prior race drivers were not required to make pit stops. The top eight finishers earned points towards their respective championships.

Feature race

The feature race was due to start at 11:15 Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00) on 24 May, but was delayed by 15 minutes due to an incident during qualifying for the Porsche Supercup race in which several cars crashed at Massenet corner. Repairs were required to the barriers at the turn as they had been dislodged, and oil laid on the track surface at the same turn was covered with cement dust. When the race began under overcast and cool weather of and a track temperature of , wheelspin from Cecotto and a slow reaction from him allowed his teammate Evans to lead the field into Sainte Dévote turn. Soon after a 15-car crashed at the first corner forced a stoppage. After losing the lead Cecotto was holding off Leimer through Sainte Dévote, it became impossible for Cecotto to maintain his line and he understeered straight into the barrier. Leimer was trapped and mounted the left-hand corner of Cecotto's car. Palmer took avoiding action by spinning on the inside, blocking the turn. Palmer avoided injury when Leal's front wing almost struck his helmet.

Coletti, Leal, Dillmann, Frijns, Ericsson, Rossi, Berthon, Binder, Giovesi, Haryanto, Rosenzweig and Abt were all trapped in the blockade with varying degrees of car damage. Nasr was near Bird and Ceccon and avoided the collision between Leal and Palmer. Drivers ran back to their cars and remonstrated with marshals to allow them to take the restart. A 40-minute delay was necessitated for track clearing before the race could be restarted. Nine drivers had enough damage to warrant their retirement: Cecotto, Leimer, Palmer, Leal, Frijns, Ericsson, Rossi, Berthon and Giovesi. The running order was determined by where the drivers were in the first sector with others assigned their starting positions. This gave Evans the lead behind the safety car followed by Bird, Ceccon, Nasr, Calado, Richelmi, Lancaster and Quaife-Hobbs. The safety car was withdrawn at the end of lap two and racing resumed. Evans and Bird opened up a two-second lead over Ceccon, Nasr, Calado and Richelmi. Although Evans had switched to the supersoft tyres during the stoppage Bird set consecutive fastest laps on the soft tyres.

As they had been compromised by the first lap pileup and were at the back of the field, Dillmann and Coletti chose to make their mandatory pit stops when the window opened at the end of lap seven for rear soft compound tyres. Haryanto and Abt made their stops on the next lap and Calado and Lancaster followed on lap nine. Coletti's early pit stop caused him to lap faster than other drivers by two seconds. Other drivers became aware of the significance and Nasr entered the pit lane to keep his position from Calado. Ceccon and Richelmi did the same on the 11th lap, putting pressure on race leader Evans who was at this point three seconds a lap slower than Ceccon. Evans made his own pit stop on lap 12 for soft compound tyres but lost the lead to Ceccon, who made up enough time to pass him. Evans could not keep close to Ceccon and was three seconds behind after one lap and his diminishing pace hurt the delayed Bird who became the leader following Evans' pit stop. On lap 15, De Jong made a problematic pit stop: a rear jack failure delayed him and he crossed the yellow line at the pit lane exit twice, incurring a drive-through penalty.