The Istanbul Park racetrack hosted today the first round of the GP2 Main Series to start a long, nine-event schedule ending on the next September with the running of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The Turkish round of the championship provided some entertaining action today with the cars hitting the track for the first, 30-minute sessions. Davide Valsecchi provided a solid performance by clocking the 8th fastest laptime at the end of qualifying, ran on dry asphalt after a rain-hit practice session. "It hasn't been an easy session - told Davide - because after a few minutes my car died and I thought that my day was over. Luckily, I managed to re-fire, and clocked the 6th fastest mark. With my last set of new tires I was sure I would have made it to the top spots, but due to traffic and to the many yellow flags I couldn't improve. It's a pity because I was blocked by slower cars two times and there's nothing you can do". Two hours after the end of the session, Davide was notified a 10-place penalty assessed to him for having driven part of the track on the wrong way in order to re-start his car's engine. As a consequence, he will take-off from row 9 on Race 1. The first race of the weekend, scheduled to run on a 32-lap distance, will take-off tomorrow at 15:40. The 23-lap Race 2 will start on Sunday at 11:35 (all times local, GMT+3). The 2011 GP2 Series will benefit from a wide international TV  coverage. In Italy, national network RAI will broadcast all this season's races live.

In the first two thirds of today's opening race of the 2011 GP2 Main Series, Davide Valsecchi showed some huge potential, moving up from 18th to 8th. A spot that could have meant a pole for Race 2. Unfortunately, one of the front wing's flaps started to get loose, moving towards the under side of his car and making it extremely challenging to drive. As a consequence, race control showed Davide a black and orange flag that forced him to go back to the pits to remove the faulty component. It took quite some time to complete the job, and Valsecchi found himself at the bottom of the carts before bouncing back to 16th.

"At the beginning it was great - told Davide - I had a great start and when I hit the points zone I was very satisfied for what I had achieved. Then the front wing started to bend each time more and ended up under my car, which became really hard to drive. When they called me back to the pits, I knew that my fight for a top spot was over. I felt bad because it made all the good work done become useless. However, there's not too much to do in such cases…"

Race 2 will be starting tomorrow, on a 23-lap distance, at 11:35 local time (10:35 Italian time). Rai 2 will provide live TV coverage, while Davide will take-off from the 16th spot.