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Perez rockets to Qatar sprint win

Sergio Perez and Barwa Campos teammate Vitaly Petrov made good use of lightning starts to dominate Saturday evening's GP2 Asia sprint race at Losail in Qatar

Arden duo Luiz Razia and Edoardo Mortara both made tardy getaways from the front row and squeezed Davide Valsecchi, who tried to go between them. They didn't look out for Petrov and Perez, however, who both sprinted past them to hit the front from P6 and P7 respectively.

Petrov led the opening lap, but made a slow exit from the final corner, allowing Perez to blast past him under braking for Turn 1 around the outside: "I lost him in my mirrors, he was so close, so I had to let him go," said the Russian.

After that, Perez's only scare was an FMS car which went off track and rejoined in front of him - the same one which almost cost him a place to his teammate yesterday.

"It wasn't so close this time," he said. "My biggest moment was at the first corner when Razia didn't see me and almost put me on the grass."

The challenge of yesterday's winner Nico Hulkenberg faded when he got stuck behind Mortara, losing at least 5secs to the Campos cars as he toiled to find a way past. He eventually did so at Turn 1 on lap 15, but didn't have enough time to make any inroads into the leaders.

Mortara finished fourth, ahead of Valsecchi, who banged wheels with Razia at 170mph on the approach to Turn 1 to grab the position. Razia rounded out the point scorers in sixth.

Classified:

Pos  Driver          Team                       Time
 1.  Perez           Barwa Campos Team          39:13.229
 2.  Petrov          Barwa Campos Team          +   2.355
 3.  Hulkenberg      ART Grand Prix             +  11.929
 4.  Mortara         Arden International        +  19.454
 5.  Valsecchi       Durango                    +  21.735
 6.  Razia           Arden International        +  22.618
 7.  D'ambrosio      Dams                       +  24.029
 8.  Van Der Garde   GFH Team iSport            +  24.346
 9.  Jakes           Super Nova Racing          +  25.253
10.  Villa           Super Nova Racing          +  26.074
11.  Bonanomi        My Team Qi-Meritus Mahara  +  26.214
12.  Nunes           Piquet GP                  +  27.942
13.  Ricci           DPR                        +  39.846
14.  Yamamoto        ART Grand Prix             +  40.391
15.  Rigon           Trident Racing             +  41.150
16.  Parente         My Team Qi-Meritus Mahara  +  44.540
17.  Rodriguez       Piquet GP                  +  45.444
18.  Kobayashi       Dams                       +  47.737
19.  Gonzalez        Fisichella Motor Sport     +  47.761
20.  Provenzano      Trident Racing             +1:12.342
21.  Crestani        Ocean Racing Technology    +1:19.439
22.  Dalle Stelle    Durango                    +1:28.744
23.  Nai Chia Chen   Fisichella Motor Sport     +   1 lap

Not Classified:

     Driver          Team                    Laps
     Herck           DPR                      16
     Al Fardan       GFH Team iSport          11

Fastest lap: Perez, 1:39.527 on lap 22

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