Motorsport: Evans top points scorer after GP2 Silverstone

Mitch Evans followed up an impressive win on Saturday with a seventh yesterday. Photo / GP2 Media.

A gritty chase and seventh place in last night's (NZ time) GP2 sprint race consolidated Mitch Evans as the top points scorer at the British Grand Prix fifth round.

Following his impressive maiden win in Saturday's 29-lap feature race, the 20-year-old Aucklander was on the attack again, after another storming start.

Evans lined up eighth with the 'reverse top eight' grid format for the shorter 21-lap Sunday morning race at Silverstone and almost pulled off a bold play for fourth place on the first lap. However, the thwarted bid allowed series leader Jolyon Palmer to get ahead.

"I got a good star and was challenging Richelmi and Leal down the inside by the Brooklands corner but we were three wide and I had to back out of it. I had another go at Luffield and lost a bit of momentum which allowed Palmer to get a run on me out of Copse," explained Evans.

That frantic opening lap ended with Evans behind pole sitter Richelmi and he spent the rest of the race fighting him for sixth place. At the finish Evans shadowed Richelmi by a mere 0.4 second and the pair crossed the line within 13 seconds of race winner Felipe Nasr.

"We had decent pace and once the tyres came up to temperature I was able to have a couple of good nibbles at Richelmi. It was good to be in the points again and come out as top scorer for the weekend," said Evans.

"With the win on Saturday it was a satisfying weekend because we are on the pace approaching the halfway point of the season, in two weeks time at Hockenheim."

Evans gathered 29pts from the two Silverstone races and set the fastest overall lap time. Palmer and Stefano Coletti were next best, scoring 26pts. Going into Silverstone Evans was in 8th overall; now he is fourth in the standings and increasing his confidence at every race.

Evans has scored points in the last six races and his consistency has pushed him to fourth equal with Coletti on the point table. His form now is in stark contrast to the start of the 11-round international season when, after the two opening rounds in Malaysia and Spain; Evans was languishing in 16th overall with just two points.

He's pleased to have recovered the form that saw him score at every round during his GP3 title-winning 2012 season; and improve steadily from his debut GP2 season in 2013 when he scored in just four of the 11 rounds on his way to 13th overall.

"I'm looking forwards to some more good weekends because we are now looking at regular top three finishes," said Evans. "I won at Hockenheim in GP3 so I want to keep this momentum going at our next races."

Felipe Nasr claimed victory in the sprint race at Silverstone.The Brazilian was never headed as he left his rivals in his wake for a dominant win in cold but dry conditions ahead of Coletti and Johnny Cecotto.

The Williams F1 test driver's victory was set up at the start with a sharp getaway from second on the reverse grid. He quickly passed poleman Richelmi whose poor start saw him surrounded by countryman Coletti and an equally rapid Cecotto. Julian Leal also sneaked through at the first corner.

Palmer snuck past Evans before the lap finished to put himself into his teammate's mirrors, while Stoffel Vandoorne tried but failed to make the same move.
Back at the front Nasr and Coletti were pulling away from their rivals, with the Monegasque driver closing a little each lap as he set himself up for an attack later in the race as his team cautioned him to watch his front left tyre. But Coletti was soon struggling, just as Palmer found a way past Richelmi and started to close on Cecotto.

Nasr was left to race into the distance, doing just enough to build a gap lap after lap but not so much that he took performance out of the car, easily winning by over 4 seconds from Coletti.Cecotto held off a late race challenge from Palmer to round out the podium.

Leal finished a quiet race in fifth ahead of Richelmi, who denied a hard charging Evans.

Palmer now leads Nasr by 143 points to 105, with Cecotto behind them on 94 points, Evans and Coletti on 67 and just one point ahead of Leal, and Vandoorne on 58.