Sam Bird (RUSSIAN TIME) Singapore R2

Bird cruises to Singapore sprint race win—
 
RUSSIAN TIME driver takes fifth victory of the season—
Sam Bird kept the pressure on Series leader Fabio Leimer scoring another win through a display of mature driving to take a lights to flag victory in today’s sprint race at the Marina Bay circuit. The Briton headed Marcus Ericsson and Leimer.
At the start, Bird was able to control the rest of the pack from pole position, Ericsson in tow. Behind the pair, Leimer leapfrogged a slow-starting Tom Dillmann to move up to third with Stéphane Richelmi also passing the Frenchman. Further down the field, there was a bit of chaos at Turn 8 when Stefano Coletti braked too late and punted Mitch Evans with Simon Trummer, Alexander Rossi and Dani Clos as collateral damage. All cars could resume their race, but the Monegasque driver received a drive through penalty.
At the front, Bird managed a small breather to Ericsson, both men saving their tyres and so were Leimer and Richelmi. Behind them, yesterday’s race winner Jolyon Palmer was fighting to keep his position, but the Brit soon started to struggle on his super soft tyres and had to let Jon Lancaster, Johnny Cecotto and Daniel Abt through. The German was running in seventh position but was handed a drive through penalty when it was shown that he had failed to slow down under yellow flag. Unfortunately for the German, he did not observe his penalty within the allocated window and was black flagged. Palmer was then busy defending from a charging pack made up of Daniel De Jong, Rene Binder and Vittorio Ghirelli. The Brit eventually returned to the pits for another set of tyres.
Ericsson looked like he was on a mission to try and catch Bird, the gap splitting the pair going down from 2.4s to 1.3s, but the RUSSIAN TIME driver picked up the pace again and made sure that the Swede was too far to be a real threat and drove safely to the chequered flag enjoying a fifth win this season and closing the deficit on Leimer in the standings. The Swiss had a quiet race to third ahead of Richelmi, Lancaster, Cecotto, and De Jong. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs charged to eighth and the final point of the race overtaking Binder in the final stages.
Leimer still holds on to the lead of the standings with 179 points to 172 points for Bird, while Nasr’s challenging race brought him no points and left him on 148, ahead of Coletti on 135 and Calado on 134 points. RUSSIAN TIME extend their lead in the teams’ standings over Carlin by 264 points to 247, ahead of Racing Engineering on 241 and DAMS on 205. The final round of the season will take place in Abu Dhabi in the first week of November.
Singapore – Sprint Race
Driver
Team
1.
Sam Bird
RUSSIAN TIME
2.
Marcus Ericsson
DAMS
3.
Fabio Leimer
Racing Engineering
4.
Stéphane Richelmi
DAMS
5.
Jon Lancaster
Hilmer Motorsport
6.
Johnny Cecotto
Arden International
7.
Daniel De Jong
MP Motorsport
8.
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs
Hilmer Motorsport
9.
Rene Binder
Venezuela GP Lazarus
10.
Nathanael Berthon
Trident Racing
11.
Rio Haryanto
Barwa Addax Team
12.
Julian Leal
Racing Engineering
13.
Simon Trummer
Rapax
14.
Tom Dillmann
RUSSIAN TIME
15.
Mitch Evans
Arden international
16.
Felipe Nasr
Carlin
17.
Jolyon Palmer
Carlin
18.
Jake Rosenzweig
Barwa Addax Team
19.
James Calado
ART Grand Prix
20.
Vittorio Ghirelli
Venezuela GP Lazarus
21.
Dani Clos
MP Motorsport
22.
Gianmarco Raimondo
Trident Racing
23.
Alexander Rossi
EQ8 Caterham Racing
24.
Stefano Coletti
Rapax
Not Classified
Daniel Abt
ART Grand Prix
Sergio Canamasas
EQ8 Caterham Racing
Fastest Lap: Jolyon Palmer (Carlin) – 1:57.368 on lap 14