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Giovinazzi takes third GP2 victory in Spa sprint race

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Antonio Giovinazzi (ITA, PREMA Racing) 2016 GP2 Series Round 6 Spa-Francorchamps, Spa, Belgium Sunday 28 August 2016 Photo: /GP2 Series Media Service ref: Digital Image _SBB6155

Antonio Giovinazzi breathed fresh life into his GP2 Series title bid by scoring his third win of the season at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.

Giovinazzi claimed pole position for the feature race on Saturday, but never recovered from a poor start that resigned him to a sixth-place finish.

The Italian started third on Sunday by virtue of the reverse grid, and made a good start to jump up into second behind Rapax driver Gustav Malja.

In a near-repeat from Saturday, Malja held the lead for an extended period before the Prema driver behind - on Saturday it had been Pierre Gasly - lined up a move. Giovinazzi swept around the outside of Les Combes on lap seven to seize a lead that he would never relinquish.

Giovinazzi managed to open up a gap to Malja that amounted to 2.3 seconds at the checkered flag to score his third win of the season following his double dip at Baku in June.

“I was really disappointed yesterday because I started on pole and made a bad start,” Giovinazzi said. “I ended P6 in the feature race so it was not what I had expected.

“But last night, Prema worked really hard to find what went wrong and this morning I made a good start. We knew we had a good pace with the car so I just waited for the DRS to be enabled to overtake Malja after four or five laps. Then I just remained focused to keep the tires alive.

“I would like to thank Prema again for their amazing job race after race. Next round will be my home race so obviously I hope we will be able to repeat our good form from this weekend and from the start of the season.”

Malja kept his cool to score his first podium finish in GP2, crossing the line second ahead of Luca Ghiotto in P3.

Championship leader Gasly fought from P8 on the grid to finish fourth, ensuring that he heads to this weekend’s round at Monza with a 17-point lead over Giovinazzi in the drivers’ championship.

Former Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello was fifth ahead of Oliver Rowland, while Sergio Canamasas and Norman Nato picked up the final points for P7 and P8 after Alex Lynn and Jordan King were hit with post-race penalties.

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