Monaco GP2: Markelov robs Nato of win in VSC farce

Opting to stay out later than anyone on a prime-option strategy, Markelov, who had started in P15, got a serious boost from the numerous crashes to gain a ton of time under VSC and emerge ahead of Nato after his pitstop.

Having topped his qualifying group to secure a front row start, Nato eased past slow-starting poleman Sergey Sirotkin to lead into Ste Devote.

But the Russian quickly recovered from the poor getaway, holding off Nato's teammate Jordan King and setting out after the Frenchman, who he followed closely over the opening laps.

Eventually, Nato established some breathing room, heading Sirotkin by a second on lap 11 as King dropped off the duo.

At that point, Sirotkin allowed himself a mistake, cutting the Nouvelle Chicane and dropping back - but it took the Renault test driver just five laps to recover the lost time.

Meanwhile, in a battle that would later decide the podium, Oliver Rowland attempted a rare overtaking move on Mitch Evans into Nouvelle Chicane, the Kiwi cutting the corner to stay ahead - which would later result in a five-second penalty.

As the race approached halfway, Pierre Gasly, who had been relegated to a pitlane start from missing the weighbridge, clobbered Arden's Jimmy Eriksson, the debris from the accident the first of the race's many virtual safety car periods.

The VSC was soon lifted, with Sirotkin gaining massively on Nato - only for his ART Grand Prix machine to fishtail on exit of Piscine and smack the wall, making it a second consecutive feature race retirement for the Russian.

That made it a Racing Engineering 1-2 out front as the VSC came out again while Sirotkin's car was removed - and, as the race went back to green, it was immediately back to VSC conditions for a crash for Nabil Jeffri at La Rascasse.

That would be far from the end of the race's drama, with King hitting the wall in the next green flag stretch and retiring in the pits, giving provisional second place to Rowland, who had passed Evans on one of the VSC restarts.

The frontrunners, all running a prime-option strategy, pitted with around 10 laps remaining, Nato being the latest to do so - and the Racing Engineering driver's stop went poorly, costing him a sizable gap he had built up over Rowland, even if he did rejoin just ahead.

The slow stop did have more serious repercussions, however, as Markelov, staying out late and having run 20 seconds behind Nato at that point, started gaining time on worn primes, before a VSC came out for Luca Ghiotto's Trident car shedding debris.

That VSC period soon ended, only to be immediately replaced by another VSC as Ghiotto came to a halt on track - and it is during that hold-up that Markelov gained time on Nato.

Pitting as the track went green for the final time, Markelov emerged ahead of Nato and held him off on cold tyres to take the chequered flag in first.

Nato and Rowland completed a provisional podium, ahead of Alex Lynn, Evans, and Markelov's teammate Raffaele Marciello.

An option-prime strategy saw Antonio Giovinazzi take seventh, while Marvin Kirchhofer, on a similar strategy, took the reverse-grid pole after Ghiotto's retirement.

Nobuharu Matsushita and Daniel de Jong completed the points.

Race results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	1:01:27.183
2	Norman Nato	Racing Engineering	1.541
3	Oliver Rowland	MP Motorsport	3.187
4	Alex Lynn	DAMS	8.239
5	Mitch Evans	Pertamina Campos Racing	11.723
6	Raffaele Marciello	Russian Time	15.025
7	Marvin Kirchhofer	Carlin	21.153
8	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	21.582
9	Daniel de Jong	MP Motorsport	22.343
10	Arthur Pic	Rapax	23.333
11	Antonio Giovinazzi*	PREMA Racing	25.037
12	Sergio Canamasas	Carlin	30.192
13	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Campos Racing	31.295
14	Gustav Malja*	Rapax	39.900
15	Pierre Gasly	PREMA Racing	49.748
16	Philo Paz Armand	Trident	1 Lap
Ret	Luca Ghiotto	Trident
Ret	Jimmy Eriksson	Arden International
Ret	Jordan King	Racing Engineering
Ret	Nabil Jeffri	Arden International
Ret	Sergey Sirotkin	ART Grand Prix
Ret	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS