Jeddah Corniche Circuit

SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX

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July 29, 2010
Published on tags: Superleague
Having won 3 races in a row, Janne Tanskanen headed into the Brazilian round of the Superleague with great momentum and an ever increasing Championship lead over Mark Wicks. However the Finn suffered a small upset in qualifying as reigning champion Joe Consiglio managed to pip Tanskanen by just 0.032s in the closest qualifying battle of the year. Phil Perkins once again used the power of the Draig to great effect and posted the 4th fastest time, splitting the Woods cars.

At the start, all eyes were on the battle between the Nordsjoen cars at the front. Tanskanen got slightly better start, but Consiglio held the inside line into Turn 1. However the pair had a small touch down to Turn 2, forcing Consiglio into a lazy spin which dropped him to the back of the field. The Maltese driver digs deep and by Lap 5 he has recovered to 5th place behind Mark Wicks.

Into his second stint Tanskanen held a small lead over Perkins, who had used his superior straightline speed to edge ahead of the Woods of Kieran Ryan. Meanwhile in the other Woods car, Wicks was coming under strong pressure from the recovering Consiglio and the pair went side by side on Lap 30 with Consiglio eventually taking the place. A few laps later this became 3rd place as Perkins was the only leading runner to adopt a 3 stop strategy.

With the top 3 largely settled, the one of the remaining battles was between Perkins and Wicks for 4th. Here, after slipping behind Wicks during his third and final stop, Perkins was gradually able to close in the gap and used his Ferrari engine power to blast past Wicks on the main straight to claim 4th. There was also an interesting battle for the final points places, as Tim-Oliver Wagner managed to beat both the ST Racing cars to claim 8th place on his GPVWC debut.

As the drivers took the chequered flag, the win belonged to Tanskanen who was unable to stretch away from the field and so nursed his car home a mere 7 seconds ahead of Ryan. After an impressive comeback drive, Consiglio completed the podium and further extended Nordsjoen's lead in the constructor? championship.