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Luiz Razia wins GP2 season opener in Malaysia

Luiz Razia opened his fourth GP2 season with a race victory in Malaysia, as a slow start left Sepang polesitter Davide Valsecchi to settle for second

Brazilian driver Razia's win was his first since the 2009 Monza sprint race, and his Arden team's first triumph since the 2010 series opener.

Razia led from the outset after Valsecchi (DAMS) got away slowly from pole and slipped to fourth behind Racing Engineering's Fabio Leimer and Coloni's Stefano Coletti.

It did not take long for Valsecchi to make progress, as he benefited from Coletti running wide on lap five, then put a bold move on Leimer into Turn 1 next time around.

But catching Razia proved harder. Although there was a spell going into the final third of the race when Valsecchi was lapping up to a second faster than his 2011 AirAsia team-mate in the race lead, the gap stabilised at five seconds and ultimately Razia managed to edge away again.

Max Chilton jumped to third in the pitstops and then held off Leimer to give Carlin its maiden GP2 podium.

Close behind, Coletti beat leading rookie Felipe Nasr (DAMS) to sixth, as Lotus' Esteban Gutierrez recovered well from his difficult qualifying day to come through to seventh.

Eighth place and reverse grid pole went to Gutierrez's Lotus team-mate Calado, who won a late battle with slow-starter Giedo van der Garde (Caterham). Fabrizio Crestani completed the top 10 for Lazarus on its GP2 debut, fending off a charging Nathanael Berthon (Racing Engineering).

Top 10 qualifier Jolyon Palmer stalled his iSport car on the grid, as did Rapax's Tom Dillmann, prompted an extra formation lap and leaving Palmer only 17th at the finish.

Nigel Melker's race was ruined by an early drive-through penalty, issued because his Ocean mechanics were still on the grid when the '15 second' board was raised before the formation lap. He finished 18th.

Stephane Richelmi and Simon Trummer, meanwhile, both had 20s added to their race times for causing collisions. The penalties dropped both drivers two spots, with Trident's Richelmi falling to 19th and Arden man Trummer to 23rd.

Results - 30 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                   Time/Gap
 1.  Luiz Razia           Arden                56m00.250s
 2.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                   + 7.817s
 3.  Max Chilton          Carlin                + 27.366s
 4.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering    + 28.291s
 5.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni                + 32.217s
 6.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                  + 33.378s
 7.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus                 + 33.679s
 8.  James Calado         Lotus                 + 36.449s
 9.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham              + 41.519s
10.  Fabrizio Crestani    Lazarus               + 43.240s
11.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering    + 43.720s
12.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin                + 53.303s
13.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport              + 1m01.683s
14.  Josef Kral           Addax               + 1m02.683s
15.  Julian Leal          Trident             + 1m09.180s
16.  Nigel Melker         Ocean               + 1m10.399s
17.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport              + 1m12.861s
18.  Tom Dillmann         Rapax               + 1m27.810s
19.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident             + 1m35.206s*
20.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni              + 1m39.125s
21.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax               + 1m48.025s
22.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus                 + 1 lap
21.  Simon Trummer        Arden                   + 1 lap*
Did not finish:

     Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham                13 laps
     Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax                    7 laps
     Jon Lancaster        Ocean                     1 lap

*20s added to race time

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