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Clivio Piccione’s 4 th place finish at Silverstone this morning gained him valuable championship points but the Monegasque driver was denied the podium finish he so desperately wanted. Starting from 2 nd on the grid, Clivio made a good start at the beginning of what was to be a very close and exciting race. He held onto pole-sitter Porteiro but soon came under pressure from Piquet and a hard-charging Hamilton who had come through the field from 8 th place. One of the most exciting moves of the race came on lap 9 when Clivio found himself squeezed on the track by both Piquet and Hamilton. “We were three abreast into Becketts with Piquet on my left. I tried to defend but then the ART car arrived and I found myself in the middle. Going through such a quick corner I didn’t want to be the cheese in the sandwich. They were going to squeeze me so I backed off but then saw Piquet going off so at least I didn’t lose out too much. “I’m obviously disappointed as I was hoping for a podium.” *The results remain provisional as one of the top three cars is under technical investigation by the stewards. Due to a technical regulation infringement, Felix Porteiro of Campos Racing has been disqualified from the results of today's second race at Silverstone. This means that Clivio has been awarded 3rd place in the results. It was just a shame he didn't get to spray the champagne!
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SILVERSTONE RACE 2 
Clivio survived an incident packed race today, including three safety car periods, to finish 7 th and secure a front row start for tomorrow’s second, sprint race of the Silverstone weekend. The 22-year-old Monaco man was understandably happy after the race, despite having struggled with a few technical problems. “It was a tough race me for but I’m obviously happy with the front row start tomorrow and for sure I’m aiming for a win. I had some gearbox problems from the start which, combined with a long brake pedal at a couple of braking points and the really windy conditions made it very tough. “The gearbox thing affected the car in a couple of areas; going up the gears I had drops between the gears which was losing me time on the straight. Then, going down, the car was pushing me on the brakes. All those things added up together made it a tough race for me. The track was difficult and I had two small offs going into Club corner, losing one position each time, but Andy, my engineer, didn’t give me too hard a time because I finished in the points! “Overall I’m happy. We’ll look at the data to see what caused those problems and solve them, have a think about the set up, and aim for a win tomorrow. I am, of course, aiming to get into the lead and pull out a gap as quickly as possible. Wish me luck!”
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At mid way point through the season the GP2 Series finds itself at the British Grand Prix track of Silverstone. And, for a change, it’s warm and sunny! Following on from the positive momentum started in Barcelona, and after the points-scoring 4 th place at Monaco, Clivio came to England expecting a good race. “I really like it here at Silverstone as it’s very fast and has some corners where you have to be very committed. A bit like Barcelona in that respect. We didn’t have a very good practice session this morning as a gear had been supplied to us wrongly marked and it was put into my car. It meant that I was effectively losing more than a second a lap to my rivals as the gap between the gears was wrong.” In an extremely competitive qualifying session, Clivio set a best time of 1:29.548, only four tenths from pole position. He said afterwards: “I’m happy because I’m only a couple of tenths off the pole but I’m in p9 which isn’t so good! When I’d done a 1:29.5 I thought…”that’s really great” but then everyone else got quicker. I did my best. We didn’t have a really good session in the morning so I think we did okay. We’re in the top ten. The race is going to be really hard on the cars especially on the tyres. The left rear wear is worse than anything else. It’s sunny and warm here at Silverstone – for a change! Everything seems a lot easier round here than at Monaco because there’s so much space and you have much more vision. You can plan what’s coming up. The tricky part will be the tyre degradation because it’s so hard on them. I’m in a points scoring position though and I just need to have a good start. After that we’ll make the most of it.
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