2015 Bahrain GP2 Series round

The first race began at 13:10 Arabia Standard Time (UTC+3) on 18 April.[15] The weather at the start of the race was sunny and hot with an air temperature of 30 °C (86 °F) and a track temperature of 49 °C (120 °F) with winds making the track dusty.[16] When the race started, Vandoorne maintained his pole position advantage heading into the first corner. His teammate Matsushita made a slow start, and his anti-stall system activated, allowing several cars to get ahead of him before he got up to speed. Nato moved from seventh to third while Lynn inherited second position. Sørensen's car was damaged while hold off an overtake by de Jong.[17] Rossi overtook his teammate King for seventh place on the same lap and started to close up to Pic and Gasly.[16] Sørensen drove into the pit lane to retire because of the damage sustained from de Jong's pass.[17]

Alexander Rossi (pictured in 2013) finished in third place.

Marciello used DRS on the fourth lap to close to Nato into the first turn while battling him for fourth place. As the two drivers battled through turn four, Pic passed them.[18] Nato changed his line by braking for turn seven, and Marciello made an aggressive pass, causing both drivers to make contact with Pic, sending him spinning backwards. Gasly arrived at the apex of the turn and was collected by Pic who drove into Marciello.[17][18] Pic, Gasly and Marciello retired immediately and the safety car was deployed.[18] Drivers who had started on the soft-compound tyres elected to change to the medium compound tyres during their mandatory pit stops, which meant they rejoined the race outside of the top ten. These drivers had to hope that the medium compound tyres would last until the end of the race while pushing hard.[17] Marciello entered the pit lane to retire. King was forced to wait behind Rossi during the pit stop phase and fell to 17th.[18]

Vandoorne remained with his intended strategy and led the field back up to speed at the lap-nine restart, ahead of Haryanto and Leal. He fended off an attempted overtake by Haryanto heading into the first corner, while Leal fell to fifth after he was passed by Matsushita and Visoiu.[17] While in traffic, Lynn attempted to pass Rossi into the first turn, but made contact with the rear of his car and sustained front wing damage.[19] Rossi overtook Amberg by the 12th lap. He caught up to Stanaway and quickly overtook him, and passed Berthon using DRS two laps later.[16] Rossi made further use of the DRS to pass de Jong and Markelov, allowing him to pull away from the struggling Lynn.[17] Rossi overtook Leal for fifth on lap 15,[16] and the drivers in the middle of the field made their mandatory tyre pit stops. Evans overtook Lynn into turn one on the 18th lap. Lynn reported that his car had tyre degradation problems and lost positions, while cars who conserved their tyres took advantage.[17]

Matsushita made a pit stop at the end of lap 20, moving Rossi to fourth place. Rossi was approximately ten seconds behind Vandoorne. preventing the latter from remaining the leader following his pit stop.[17] Vandoorne made his pit stop at the end of the 22nd lap,[19] and was delayed while his pit crew installed his right-front tyre, losing him time.[17] He reemerged in tenth place.[18] The rest of the leaders made their pit stops promoting Rossi to the lead on lap 23.[17][16] Rossi was 6.7 seconds ahead of second-placed Evans whom King battled.[18] King overtook Evans for second on lap 25, although Evans used DRS to reclaim the position.[16] Vandoorne was more than 20 seconds behind Rossi, but his new, soft-compound tyres allowed him to lap five seconds faster than Rossi.[18] The battle between Evans and King allowed Rossi to pull away and created an obstruction giving Vandoorne an advantage which he took.[17] He passed King with DRS for on lap 28,[16] and Evans soon after.[17] Rossi led Vandoorne by nine seconds with four laps remaining with the latter lapping three seconds faster in clean air.[18]

Rossi struggled with severe tyre degradation and increasingly locked and flat-spotted his tyres.[17] Vandoorne had reduced Rossi's lead by the penultimate lap. He chose not to rush to avoid damaging his car. He moved into the lead after leaving the back straight when Rossi ran wide at the first hairpin.[17][18][19] Haryanto made a similar strategy call as Vandoorne and passed King and Rossi to move into second position.[17][18] Vandoorne maintained the lead for the rest of the race and crossed the start/finish line after 32 laps to win. Haryanto finished second, with Rossi in third. King took fourth, ahead of Visoiu and Evans. Berthon, Leal, Negrão, and Matsushita made up eighth through tenth.[19] Eleventh-place finisher Stöckinger became the first Filipino driver to complete a GP2 Series race.[17] He was ahead of Sirotkin, Markelov, Canamasas, and Stanaway. Amberg, Binder, de Jong and Lynn were final classified finishers.[19]

Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold.

Final feature race classification

Pos.	No.	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	5	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	32	1:01:23.306	1	31 (25+4+2)
2	15	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	32	+5.056	12	18
3	8	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	32	+5.497	8	15
4	7	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	32	+12.322	6	12
5	19	Robert Vișoiu	Rapax	32	+20.048	14	10
6	9	Mitch Evans	Russian Time	32	+25.543	13	8
7	26	Nathanaël Berthon	Lazarus	32	+27.729	21	6
8	3	Julián Leal	Carlin	32	+28.463	16	4
9	20	André Negrão	Arden International	32	+29.502	19	2
10	6	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	32	+29.664	2	1
11	22	Marlon Stöckinger	Status Grand Prix	32	+36.875	23
12	18	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	32	+38.516	10
13	10	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	32	+41.021	11
14	16	Sergio Canamasas	MP Motorsport	32	+41.391	17
15	23	Richie Stanaway	Status Grand Prix	32	+43.375	15
16	27	Zoël Amberg	Lazarus	32	+44.062	24
17	12	René Binder	Trident	32	+44.682	22
18	17	Daniël de Jong	MP Motorsport	32	+48.421	20
19	2	Alex Lynn	DAMS	32	+1:05.572	3
Ret	11	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	5	Collision	5
Ret	1	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	4	Collision	9
Ret	21	Norman Nato	Arden International	4	Collision	7
Ret	4	Marco Sørensen	Carlin	4	Did not finish	18
Ret	14	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	4	Collision	4
Fastest lap: Stoffel Vandoorne (ART Grand Prix) — 1:44.617 (on lap 24)
Source: Source

Rio Haryanto (pictured in 2011) clinched the first GP2 Series victory of his career.

The second event started at 14:15 local time on 19 April.[15] Sirotkin was required to start from the pit lane after stalling his car at the beginning of the formation lap. When the race started, pole position starter Leal maintained the lead into the first corner by driving aggressively in front of the field of cars.[20] Haryanto moved from seventh to third by running on the outside,[21] while a slow getaway dropped Berthon to seventh.[20] King lost the most positions, moving from fifth to 13th, which he attributed to driving conservatively on the formation lap, and having no grip while moving off his starting position.[22] Leal pulled out to the lead over the rest of the field by pushing hard.[20][23] After completing two laps, Binder retired from the race, having made contact with another car, which damaged one of his front left suspension arms.[24] Evans was overtaken by Haryanto for second place in the first turn on lap four,[23] while Negrão lost position when he was passed by Visoiu, Matsushita, Vandoorne, and Rossi.[20]

King made contact with Canamasas in the fourth corner while driving alongside him during lap four. Both went off the circuit, with Canamasas sustaining front wing damage, which stopped his car. He became the race's second (and final) retirement. King continued but rejoined in 12th. Leal slowed due to tyre degradation,[20][23] allowing Haryanto to close up and passed him by deploying DRS for the lead on the inside on lap eight in turn one.[20][21][23] Evans attempted to pass Leal but ran wide, allowing the latter to retake the second position. Visoiu took advantage and overtook Leal for second place.[20] Evans again drove aggressively but Leal was defensive and his front wing endplate glanced Evans' front-left tyre at the turn eight hairpin. Evans drove to the pit lane for replacement tyres. Leal remained on the track, but Visoiu overtook him for second at the first corner on lap 10.[20][23] Rossi passed Leal for sixth place, while King recovered to run in ninth position.[20]

Haryanto led Visoiu, who had worn his tyres, by three seconds and the latter was unable to maintain the pace, being overtaken by Matsushita.[20] Vandoorne was overtaken Visoiu on the pit lane straight with DRS at the start of the 16th lap.[20][23] Vandoorne began to push hard and lapped one second faster than his teammate Matsushita. He passed Matsushita for second place on lap 18, providing him with an opportunity to attempt to catch Haryanto over the rest of the race. Haryanto responded and pulled away from Vandoorne. His teammate Matsushita struggled with pace and was passed by Rossi for third place.[20] Berthon recovered from his poor start and overtook Rossi, with DRS, at the start of the final lap. Haryanto crossed the start/finish line after 23 laps to win his first GP2 Series race in his 70th attempt.[23] Vandoorne finished second, ahead of third-placed Berthon, which brought Lazarus the first podium place. Rossi took fourth, with Leal fifth. Matsushita, Visoiu, and Negrão rounded out the points-scoring positions. King, Pic, Stanaway, Markelov, de Jong, and Sirotkin filled the next five positions, while Lynn, Nato, Evans, Amberg, Stöckinger, Marciello, Sørensen, and Gasly were the final classified finishers.[23]

Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold.

Final sprint race classification

Pos.	No.	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	15	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	23	41:35.490	7	15
2	5	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	23	+3.004	8	12
3	26	Nathanaël Berthon	Lazarus	23	+5.639	2	10
4	8	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	23	+6.258	6	8
5	3	Julián Leal	Carlin	23	+13.945	1	6
6	6	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	23	+15.923	10	6 (4+2)
7	19	Robert Vișoiu	Rapax	23	+19.794	4	2
8	20	André Negrão	Arden International	23	+20.159	9	1
9	7	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	23	+21.101	5
10	14	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	23	+25.690	24
11	23	Richie Stanaway	Status Grand Prix	23	+32.040	15
12	10	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	23	+33.200	13
13	17	Daniël de Jong	MP Motorsport	23	+34.335	18
14	18	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	23	+34.361	12
15	2	Alex Lynn	DAMS	23	+35.050	19
16	21	Norman Nato	Arden International	23	+39.501	22
17	9	Mitch Evans	Russian Time	23	+39.536	3
18	27	Zoël Amberg	Lazarus	23	+41.084	16
19	22	Marlon Stöckinger	Status Grand Prix	23	+43.390	11
20	11	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	23	+47.545	20
21	4	Marco Sørensen	Carlin	23	+49.715	23
22	1	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	23	+56.504	21
Ret	16	Sergio Canamasas	MP Motorsport	4	Did not finish	14
Ret	12	René Binder	Trident	2	Did not finish	17
Fastest lap: Raffaele Marciello (Trident) — 1:44.715 (on lap 23)
Source: Source