2016 Red Bull Ring GP2 and GP3 Series rounds


The 2016 Red Bull Ring GP2 and GP3 Series rounds were a pair of motor races that were held on 2 and 3 July 2016 at the Red Bull Ring in Austria as part of the GP2 Series and GP3 Series. It was the fourth round of the 2016 GP2 season and the second round of the 2016 GP3 season. The race weekend supported the 2016 Austrian Grand Prix.

Background

Following the Baku round, Nobuharu Matsushita was suspended from competing in the Austrian GP2 round due to erratic driving that caused several collisions during the restarts. On 28 June, ART Grand Prix announced René Binder as Matsushita's replacement.
Before the weekend commenced, Mahaveer Raghunathan announced that he would call time on his GP3 campaign to focus on his efforts in Auto GP. In the weekend's only practice session, Giuliano Alesi withdrew from the weekend after an accident which saw him unfit to complete the rest of the weekend.

Report

GP2 Series

Qualifying

GP2 driver, Jimmy Eriksson will carry through a three-place grid penalty from the previous round after GP2 stewards deemed him to be at fault in the collision between himself and Jordan King.
Sergey Sirotkin achieved the fastest time of 1:13.663, thereby achieving his second pole position of the year. Antonio Giovinazzi narrowly missed out by six-thousandths of a second and Pierre Gasly occupied third. The session however, ended under yellow flags after Jimmy Eriksson's car stopped at turn seven.
;Notes

Feature Race

The Feature Race for GP2 was delayed by 15 minutes due to incidents that occurred in the preceding Formula One qualifying session. The race saw changing conditions that effected the outcome of the race. While the bottom of the circuit would be dry, heavy rainfall would be at the top. Gasly spun from the lead which triggered a safety car and a flurry of pitstops. On lap 28, Marvin Kirchhöfer also spun, which triggered another safety car. Upon exiting the pitlane shortly thereafter, Artem Markelov hit the wall on pit exit, prompting a red flag due to damage to the track. After a lengthy delay, the race was restarted behind the safety car with the Campos pair of Mitch Evans and Sean Gelael leading and Philo Paz Armand, who incurred a penalty after overtaking the safety car. Raffaele Marciello began to charge through the field on fresh super soft tyres, but as the pace in the compound started to fade away, Evans took control and won his first race of the season.
;Notes

Sprint Race

The Sprint Race was held under atrocious conditions, with rain affecting the entire race. This would catch out drivers throughout the race and would lead to two safety cars. The first of which came as a result of Sean Gelael retiring after being hit by Arthur Pic on lap three. The second safety car came after Nicholas Latifi spun on the exit of turn one on lap ten. By this stage, the circuit was beginning to dry and some drivers elected to pit for dry tyres in an attempt to take advantage of the changing conditions. However, the track had not dried out sufficiently by this stage and so saw most of the competitors struggling for grip for the first few laps into the stint. As well as this, the restart was prompt and the group that had pitted for dry tyres were left far behind the leading pack by the time of the restart. In the end, Racing Engineering's Jordan King completed a dominant performance and earned his first GP2 win and Racing Engineering's second of the season.

GP3 Series

Qualifying

It was a dominant session for the ART Grand Prix outfit with the top-three being Charles Leclerc, Alexander Albon and Nyck de Vries. Leclerc achieved a time of 1:19.071, half a second faster than his nearest competitor, Albon.

Race 1

Race 2

Standings after the round

;GP2 Series
;Drivers' Championship standings
PosDriverPoints
1 Raffaele Marciello66
2 Mitch Evans56
3 Norman Nato55
4 Artem Markelov54
5 Oliver Rowland54

;Teams' Championship standings
PosTeamPoints
1 Russian Time120
2 Racing Engineering100
3 Prema Racing99
4 Campos Racing80
5 DAMS72

;GP3 Series
;Drivers' Championship standings
PosDriverPoints
1 Charles Leclerc58
2 Alexander Albon53
3 Antonio Fuoco42
4 Jake Hughes31
5 Nyck de Vries31

;Teams' Championship standings
PosTeamPoints
1 ART Grand Prix161
2 Koiranen GP44
3 Trident44
4 DAMS43
5 Arden International22