The trio of Mitch Evans, Luca Ghiotto and Jeffrey Schmidt all had reason to celebrate today after each captured a race victory in their respective championships, held in support of the 2015 FIA WEC Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).
Evans won the weekend’s feature race in the GP2 Series, Ghiotto did the same in GP3, while Schmidt triumphed in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East.
All three series were a part of this year’s FIA WEC Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain, which marked the eighth and final round of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).
In the GP2 Series, Kiwi Mitch Evans of Russian Time won the weekend’s sprint in 42 minutes 51.663 seconds.
Feature race winner Stoffel Vandoorne came in second place for ART Grand Prix a narrow 1.863secs behind, while Alex Lynn of Dams was third 17.489secs back.
Sergey Sirotkin (+20.154s) of Rapax finished in fourth, Raffaele Marciello (+21.026s) of Trident was fifth and Jordan King (+21.661s) of Racing Engineering came sixth.
Rounding out the top eight were Pierre Gasly (+22.857s) of Dams and Artem Markelov (+26.686s) of Russian Time.
GP2 was holding its 10th and penultimate round of the 2015 season in support of the FIA WEC Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain.
In the GP3 Series, Italian Luca Ghiotto raced to a fine victory today in the sprint race of round eight.
Ghiotto triumphed after completing the 15-lap event in a total time of 42 minutes 51.074 seconds. The Trident driver claimed his fifth win of the season with the result.
Frenchman Esteban Ocon of ART Grand Prix finished as runner-up 2.370 seconds behind the victor.
Briton Matthew Parry of Koiranen GP claimed the final podium spot after finishing 9.193secs back.
Emil Bernstorff (+13.550s) of Arden International was classified fourth, while Carlin’s Antonio Fuoco (+14.242s) was fifth and Marvin Kirchhofer (+14.361s) of ART Grand Prix sixth. Kirchhofer was the winner of the weekend’s first GP3 race, which was held on Friday.
Jimmy Eriksson (+16.248s) of Koiranen GP and Alfonso Celis Jr (+17.677s) of ART were seventh and eighth, respectively.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Schmidt capped a near-perfect start to the 2015/2016 season of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East after winning race two today.
Schmidt’s triumph made it back-to-back wins for the Al Nabooda Racing Team driver for the FIA WEC Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain weekend.
Schmidt won race two in 26:23.450. Ryan Cullen of Cullen Motorsport was the runner-up 4.513secs behind, while former champion Zaid Ashkanani made it two drivers for Al Nabooda on the podium.
All three top placers overall were in the Gold class.
In the Silver category, Wolfgang Triller of TriSpa Racing finished in first place ahead of Prince Saud Al Faisal of Al Faisal Racing. His Highness Shaikh Isa bin Abdulla Al Khalifa had an impressive drive, finishing third in the class for Team Bahrain.
Magnus Ohman of Mtech won the Bronze category. He was followed by Rob Frijns and Team Bahrain ace Shaikh Jaber bin Ali Al Khalifa.