The 2015 Bahrain GP2 Series round was a pair of one-make single seater motor races held on 18 and 19 April 2015 at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain as part of the GP2 Series. It was the first round of the 2015 GP2 Series and was run in support of the 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix. The first race, a 32-lap feature event, was won by ART Grand Prix driver Stoffel Vandoorne from pole position. Rio Haryanto finished second for the Campos Racing team, and Racing Engineering driver Alexander Rossi took third. Haryanto won the shorter 23-lap sprint race, from Vandoorne in second, and Lazarus driver Nathanaël Berthon in third.
Vandoorne led the first race, which was disrupted on the fourth lap following a collision between Norman Nato, Arthur Pic, Pierre Gasly and Raffaele Marciello. Drivers on the soft-compound tyres made pit stops for medium-compound tyres, while Vandoorne remained the leader for the lap-nine restart. He held it until his pit stop at the end of lap 22, and Rossi took the lead on the following lap. He kept the position until Vandoorne overtook him to win the race. Julián Leal started first in the second race and remained the leader until Haryanto passed him on the eighth lap. Haryanto maintained the lead for the rest of the race to win.
Haryanto's victory in the sprint event was his first in the GP2 Series after 70 races. The results put Vandoorne in the lead in the Drivers' Championship with 43 points, ten in front of Haryanto. Rossi assumed third position, while Berthon's third-place finish in the second event put him in fourth and Jordan King was fifth. ART Grand Prix took the lead of the Teams' Championship by 15 points over Racing Engineering. Campos Racing were two points behind in third position, while Lazarus and Rapax were fourth and fifth, with ten rounds left in the season.
Background
The 2015 Bahrain GP2 Series round was the first of eleven scheduled events in 2015. It was held on 18 and 19 April 2015 at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, and was run in support of the 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix. The drag reduction system (DRS) had two activation zones for the race: one was on the start/finish straight linking the final and first corners, and the second on the straight from the tenth and eleventh turns. Tyre supplier Pirelli brought two types of tyre to the race: two dry compounds – soft "options" and medium "primes". There were 12 teams fielding two drivers each for a total of 24 participants and every one utilised the Dallara GP2/11 car.
The final mass test session before the new season took place at the track over 1–3 April. On the first day, in hot weather, Mitch Evans (Russian Time) set the fastest lap of the morning session with a time of 1:42.479, with Jordan King (Racing Engineering) setting the quickest lap of the day in the afternoon session with a 1:41.494. An overnight sandstorm delayed the second day of testing for an hour while officials cleaned the track. Sergey Sirotkin (Rapax) was the fastest driver in the morning session with a lap of 1:41.797, and Nobuharu Matsushita (ART Grand Prix) recorded the quickest lap of the afternoon session with a time of 1:40.191. Pierre Gasly (DAMS) recorded the fastest lap time of the three days, a 1:39.632 in the morning session, and Nigel Melker was the quickest driver in the afternoon session with a lap of 1:41.566. Hilmer Motorsport elected to miss the round as they were unable to acquire the services of a driver who could bring financial backing to the team. Team principal Franz Hilmer was confident that he would enter the second round of the season in Catalunya.
Practice and qualifying
One 45-minute practice session was held on Friday before the two races. King was fastest with a time of 1:42.441, ten-hundredths of a second faster than Racing Engineering teammate Alexander Rossi in second. Alex Lynn of DAMS was third-fastest, ahead of the top ART Grand Prix car of Stoffel Vandoorne. The Campos Racing pair of Arthur Pic and Rio Haryanto were fifth and sixth. Gasly was seventh-fastest, Evans eighth, Raffaele Marciello for Trident ninth, and Matsushita completed the top ten ahead of qualifying. Vandoorne's run ended prematurely with seven minutes of the session remaining when his car stopped due to an oil pressure failure.
Friday afternoon's qualifying session ran for 30-minutes. The drivers' fastest lap times determined the starting order for the first race. The driver who won the pole position was awarded four points that went towards the Drivers' and Teams' Championship races. The session was held in cooler night-time weather conditions. Drivers used soft-compound tyres for their first timed laps before entering the pit lane for new tyres for the remainder of the session. Vandoorne set the pace in the early part of the session and improved to clinch his first pole position of the season, and his fifth consecutive in the series, with a time of 1:39.237. He was joined on the grid's front row by his teammate Matsushita who was three-tenths of a second slower than Vandoorne. Lynn was ninth after his first timed lap but recovered to qualify in third place. Pic, who was Vandoorne's closest contender in the session's opening segment, took fourth, ahead of Marciello who was stuck in second gear until his team corrected the issue. King was relegated to sixth by Marciello's fastest lap. Norman Nato (Arden International) and Rossi were seventh and eighth. Gasly in ninth made a mistake late in the session and Sirotkin was tenth. Russian Time's Artem Markelov was the fastest driver to not qualify in the top-ten starting positions. Haryanto ran strongly earl on but took 12th after he was unable to improve on his second set of soft-compound tyres. He was ahead of Evans, Robert Visoiu, and Richie Stanaway. The two Carlin drivers qualified in 16th and 18th with Julián Leal ahead of teammate Marco Sørensen. They were separated by Sergio Canamasas in the faster of the two MP Motorsport cars. André Negrão, Daniël de Jong, Nathanaël Berthon, René Binder, Marlon Stöckinger, and Zoël Amberg were the last of the qualifiers.
Qualifying classification Driver Team Time Gap 1 5 Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 1:39.237 1 2 6 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 1:39.545 +0.308 2 3 2 Alex Lynn DAMS 1:39.599 +0.362 3 4 14 Arthur Pic Campos Racing 1:39.630 +0.393 4 5 11 Raffaele Marciello Trident 1:39.645 +0.408 5 6 7 Jordan King Racing Engineering 1:39.770 +0.533 6 7 21 Norman Nato Arden International 1:39.857 +0.620 7 8 8 Alexander Rossi Racing Engineering 1:39.872 +0.635 8 9 1 Pierre Gasly DAMS 1:39.877 +0.640 9 10 18 Sergey Sirotkin Rapax 1:39.887 +0.650 9 11 10 Artem Markelov Russian Time 1:39.955 +0.718 10 12 15 Rio Haryanto Campos Racing 1:39.961 +0.724 12 13 9 Mitch Evans Russian Time 1:39.999 +0.762 13 14 19 Robert Vișoiu Rapax 1:40.128 +0.891 14 15 23 Richie Stanaway Status Grand Prix 1:40.251 +1.014 15 16 3 Julián Leal Carlin 1:40.353 +1.116 16 17 16 Sergio Canamasas MP Motorsport 1:40.434 +1.197 17 18 4 Marco Sørensen Carlin 1:40.444 +1.207 18 19 20 André Negrão Arden International 1:40.634 +1.397 19 20 17 Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 1:40.653 +1.416 20 21 26 Nathanaël Berthon Lazarus 1:40.654 +1.417 21 22 12 René Binder Trident 1:40.773 +1.536 22 23 22 Marlon Stöckinger Status Grand Prix 1:40.995 +1.758 23 24 27 Zoël Amberg Lazarus 1:41.690 +2.453 24 Source:
Races The first race was held over or 60 minutes (which ever came first) and all drivers were required by regulations 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 the first eight drivers were in reverse order of where they finished. It was run for or 45 minutes (which ever came first) and, in contrast to the first race, drivers were not required to make pit stops. The top eight finishers earned points towards their respective championships.
Feature race
The first race began at 13:10 Arabia Standard Time (UTC+3) on 18 April. The weather at the start of the race was sunny and hot with an air temperature of and a track temperature of with winds making the track dusty. When the race started, Vandoorne maintained his pole position advantage heading into the first corner. His teammate Matsushita made a slow start, and his anti-stall system activated, allowing several cars to get ahead of him before he got up to speed. Nato moved from seventh to third while Lynn inherited second position. Sørensen's car was damaged while hold off an overtake by de Jong. Rossi overtook his teammate King for seventh place on the same lap and started to close up to Pic and Gasly. Sørensen drove into the pit lane to retire because of the damage sustained from de Jong's pass.
Marciello used DRS on the fourth lap to close to Nato into the first turn while battling him for fourth place. As the two drivers battled through turn four, Pic passed them. Nato changed his line by braking for turn seven, and Marciello made an aggressive pass, causing both drivers to make contact with Pic, sending him spinning backwards. Gasly arrived at the apex of the turn and was collected by Pic who drove into Marciello. Pic, Gasly and Marciello retired immediately and the safety car was deployed on lap five. Drivers who had started on the soft-compound tyres elected to change to the medium compound tyres during their mandatory pit stops, which meant they rejoined the race outside of the top ten. These drivers had to hope that the medium compound tyres would last until the end of the race while pushing hard. A majority of drivers who began on the medium compound tyres remained on the circuit. Marciello entered the pit lane to retire. King was forced to wait behind Rossi during the pit stop phase and fell to 17th.
Vandoorne remained with his intended strategy and led the field back up to speed at the lap-nine restart, ahead of Haryanto and Leal. He fended off an attempted overtake by Haryanto heading into the first corner, while Leal fell to fifth after he was passed by Matsushita and Visoiu. While in traffic, Lynn attempted to pass Rossi into the first turn, but made contact with the rear of his car and sustained front wing damage, losing him downforce and accelerated tyre degregation. Rossi overtook Amberg by the 12th lap. He caught up to Stanaway and quickly overtook him, and passed Berthon using DRS two laps later. Rossi could minimise the time he was behind slower cars because of DRS and a new set of tyres, and made further use of the DRS to pass de Jong and Markelov, allowing him to pull away from the struggling Lynn. Rossi overtook Leal for fifth on lap 15, and the drivers in the middle of the field made their mandatory tyre pit stops. Evans overtook Lynn into turn one on the 18th lap. Lynn reported that his car had tyre degradation problems and lost positions, while cars who conserved their tyres took advantage.