The 2016 Silverstone GP2 Series round was a GP2 Series motor race held on 9 and 10 July 2016 at the Silverstone Circuit in the United Kingdom. It was the fifth round of the 2016 GP2 Series. The race weekend they supported the 2016 British Grand Prix.

Background ART Grand Prix's Nobuharu Matsushita returned to the series after serving his one-round ban in Austria.

Report Qualifying In a somewhat controversial manner, Norman Nato achieved the fastest time of 1:38.216, thereby achieving his first pole position of the year. He was under investigation for setting his pole lap under red flag conditions. He was deemed by officials to set the lap time under green conditions and his pole time stood. Pierre Gasly achieved second place two-tenths behind Nato and Nicholas Latifi achieved a career-best of third.

Driver Team Time 1 3 Norman Nato Racing Engineering 1:38.216 1 2 21 Pierre Gasly Prema Racing 1:38.441 2 3 6 Nicholas Latifi DAMS 1:38.797 3 4 9 Raffaele Marciello Russian Time 1:38.842 4 5 2 Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 1:38.904 PL 6 20 Antonio Giovinazzi Prema Racing 1:38.912 5 7 7 Mitch Evans Campos Racing 1:39.084 6 8 4 Jordan King Racing Engineering 1:39.123 7 9 12 Arthur Pic Rapax 1:39.160 8 10 22 Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 1:39.192 9 11 10 Artem Markelov Russian Time 1:39.370 10 12 1 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 1:39.572 11 13 19 Marvin Kirchhöfer Carlin 1:39.668 12 14 18 Sergio Canamasas Carlin 1:39.749 16 15 8 Sean Gelael Campos Racing 1:39.750 13 16 11 Gustav Malja Rapax 1:39.798 14 17 5 Alex Lynn DAMS 1:39.928 15 18 23 Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 1:40.459 17 19 25 Jimmy Eriksson Arden International 1:40.838 18 20 24 Nabil Jeffri Arden International 1:41.160 19 21 14 Philo Paz Armand Trident 1:41.385 20 – 15 Luca Ghiotto Trident no time 21 Source:

Notes 1. – Sirotkin was penalised after he failed to stop at the weighbridge and the car was not brought back before the mechanics worked on it, thereby violating the parc ferme ruling. He started from the pitlane. 2. – Canamasas received a three-place grid penalty after having been deemed to demonstrate unsporting behaviour towards Oliver Rowland after the conclusion of practice.

Feature Race The preferred tire strategy for the feature race was often to start on the hard compound and then switch to soft later in the race. Prema Racing went against this using the opposite strategy to great effect, with Pierre Gasly taking his maiden GP2 win from teammate Antonio Giovinazzi. Oliver Rowland also went with this strategy, achieving third despite struggling for grip in the dying laps. This result elevates both Prema drivers to first and second in the standings, with Evans maintaining third.

Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 21 Pierre Gasly Prema Racing 29 51:39.383 2 25 2 20 Antonio Giovinazzi Prema Racing 29 +9.422 5 18 3 22 Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 29 +16.090 9 15 4 7 Mitch Evans Campos Racing 29 +21.667 6 12 (2) 5 15 Luca Ghiotto Trident 29 +24.591 21 10 6 1 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 29 +25.165 11 8 7 3 Norman Nato Racing Engineering 29 +25.474 1 6 (4) 8 4 Jordan King Racing Engineering 29 +25.651 7 4 9 9 Raffaele Marciello Russian Time 29 +31.757 4 2 10 10 Artem Markelov Russian Time 29 +33.115 10 1 11 6 Nicholas Latifi DAMS 29 +34.220 3 12 19 Marvin Kirchhöfer Carlin 29 +34.409 12 13 18 Sergio Canamasas Carlin 29 +37.898 16 14 12 Arthur Pic Rapax 29 +42.610 8 15 25 Jimmy Eriksson Arden International 29 +55.205 18 16 5 Alex Lynn DAMS 29 +56.604 15 17 24 Nabil Jeffri Arden International 29 +57.490 13 18 2 Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 29 +1:02.096 PL 19 23 Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 29 +1:23.661 17 20 14 Philo Paz Armand Trident 29 +1:39.764 20 21 8 Sean Gelael Campos Racing 28 +1 Lap 13 22 11 Gustav Malja Rapax 28 +1 Lap 14 Fastest lap: Mitch Evans (Campos Racing) – 1:43.172 (on lap 24) Source:

Notes 1. – Rowland was given a five-second time penalty for excessive over-use of track limits.

Sprint Race The sprint race saw another dominant performance from Jordan King who led from start to finish despite a late charge from Luca Ghiotto. The race was rather calm for the most part until three-laps from the end when the rain started to descend upon the circuit. As the circuit became more and more slippery, the drivers soon found themselves struggling for grip. Norman Nato spun off and several others left the circuit. Rowland passed Matsushita in the final laps to achieve another podium, the only driver to do so throughout the weekend.

Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 4 Jordan King Racing Engineering 21 37:35.325 1 15 2 15 Luca Ghiotto Trident 21 +0.580 4 12 (2) 3 22 Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 21 +11.664 6 10 4 20 Antonio Giovinazzi Prema Racing 21 +11.786 7 8 5 1 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 21 +17.518 3 6 6 9 Raffaele Marciello Russian Time 21 +20.467 9 4 7 21 Pierre Gasly Prema Racing 21 +23.126 8 2 8 19 Marvin Kirchhöfer Carlin 21 +25.873 12 1 9 18 Sergio Canamasas Carlin 21 +26.721 13 10 6 Nicholas Latifi DAMS 21 +27.370 11 11 12 Arthur Pic Rapax 21 +28.061 14 12 10 Artem Markelov Russian Time 21 +28.632 10 13 7 Mitch Evans Campos Racing 21 +28.844 5 14 5 Alex Lynn DAMS 21 +29.598 16 15 24 Nabil Jeffri Arden International 21 +31.284 17 16 23 Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 21 +32.249 19 17 25 Jimmy Eriksson Arden International 21 +35.412 15 18 8 Sean Gelael Campos Racing 21 +40.058 21 19 11 Gustav Malja Rapax 21 +46.964 22 20 14 Philo Paz Armand Trident 21 +1:30.028 20 21 2 Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 21 +1:30.624 18 Ret 3 Norman Nato Racing Engineering 19 Spun off 2 Fastest lap: Luca Ghiotto (Trident) – 1:44.199 (on lap 3) Source:

Standings after the round

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 4 1 Oliver Rowland 79 4 2 Antonio Giovinazzi 78 5 3 Pierre Gasly 74 3 4 Raffaele Marciello 72 3 5 Mitch Evans 70

Teams' Championship standings Pos Team Points 2 1 Prema Racing 152 2 Racing Engineering 129 2 3 Russian Time 127 4 Campos Racing 94 1 5 ART Grand Prix 86

Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

See also 2016 British Grand Prix 2016 Silverstone GP3 Series round

References

External links Official website of GP2 Series