Esteban Gutierrez

Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez continued adding points for the 2012 GP2 Series Championship by finishing the Sprint race at the Bahrain International Circuit in fourth place after finishing the race in 41 minutes and 32.764 seconds.

Gutierrez started on the tenth position and managed to gain four places at the very start of the race and, despite a contact with another car in the first corner, he moved up the field to eventually finish in fourth place.

The drivers on the podium were Rapax’s Tom Dillman (41:16.276), followed by Arden’s Luiz Razia (41:16.474) in second and Italian driver Davide Valsecchi (41:20.234), with Dams.


Esteban Gutiérrez

Lotus GP / Car # 10 / Telmex / Telcel / Multigama / Fastenal / Vector Casa de Bolsa / Interproteccion / DeAcero / Total Health Nutrients / Sundisc Abrasives / Milwaukee / Alpinestars / Bell Helmets

“We are happy because with this result we have consistently gained points in every race; yesterday we moved up one place to finish 10th and earned a point after one of the drivers ahead of us was penalized. We must keep the consistency we have had so far.


“Today’s race was very interesting. At first I had to push hard to gain positions, but that caused significant tire degradation that affected us in the final laps, we have to work on that aspect for the European season so we can be up to the challenge”, he said.

French team Lotus GP’s driver expressed he would have liked a different result, especially in the first race to earn more points; however, he says his performance has been good.


“I would have liked a better result in yesterday’s race but even as we did our best effort, traffic during qualifying affected our starting position, although we managed to gain some places in the first race.


“In the second race we gained places again and that means our performance is good when compared to other drivers but we still need to improve a little bit to be in better shape to fight for the top positions”, he added.


Based on conclusions from the last two weeks in Bahrain, Esteban and his team will analyze the data to improve the setup of the car and the tire degradation.


“It is related to car setup and tire management during the race, we tend to push harder at the beginning to gain places and then save our tires to push again at the end.


“But pushing hard at the end has not resulted as we wanted because we suffer from tire degradation, which is something we have to study ant try to correct, because we are close in terms of speed”, said the Mexican.


|Gutierrez, who remains third in the standings with 54 points behind Valsecchi (107) and Razia (83) will return to Paris for a couple days rest and the resume his training and preparation for the next round of the season, which will take place in Barcelona on May 11-13.