2015 Brazilian Grand Prix

"They've failed to finish!" This article is a stub or is otherwise incomplete. You can help GPVWC Wiki by expanding it.

  2015 Brazilian Grand Prix

Race details
Race 17 of the 2015 Superleague season
Date	22nd October, 2015
Official name	2015 Brazilian Grand Prix
Location	Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.676 mi / 4.307 km
Distance	71 laps, 189.996 mi / 305.768 km
Weather	Light showers, drying.
Pole position
Driver	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing-Potentia
Time	1:07.486
Fastest Lap
Driver	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen-Martex
Time	1:07.605  on lap 70
Podium
First	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul-Valiant
Second	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen-Martex
Third	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing-Potentia

The 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix was the seventeenth and final round of the 2015 Superleague season, taking place at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, or Interlagos, in São Paulo on 22nd October. It was the sixteenth running of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the only Grand Prix with the exception of the Australian Grand Prix to feature in every single Superleague season. Apt, therefore, that the two oldest Grands Prix bookended the season. It was the eighth time that Brazil had hosted the final race of the season, including 2001, when that was not intended.

The race was all about deciding the Drivers' and Construtors' championships, each having two runners vying for their respective crowns. Both championships featured the reigning champions, seeking to defend their titles and win two years in a row. In the Driver's Championship, 2014 champion David Fidock trailed Philipp Puschke by 14 points. In the Constructors', Fidock's old team, 2014 champions CSG Racing, were leading Puschke's Vod:Bul Racing team by 23 points. Momentum was squarely with the defenders; Fidock had been eating into Puschke's lead since Singapore, while CSG's turn around, after a mid-season slump, saw them overtake Vod:Bul at the previous round in America. To add some spice to the proceedings, the race saw rain showers early on, although the sky cleared in the latter part of the race.

In the end, it was a champion's drive from Puschke. Starting second on the grid behind CSG's Alex Cooper, Puschke drove with determination, keen not to be intimidated by the occasion or by his dramas back in Austin. He took the lead on lap 3 and, although he lost it after the first pit stops around lap 18, he muscled his way back past Agustin Canapino on lap 21 and stayed there. This was not to say that Fidock gave up; a fantastic start saw him in third place, chasing down Cooper and Puschke, but the onset of rain cost him time and then on lap 7 an over-adventurous Fran Lopez in the Red Archer aimed roughly in the direction of the first corner and hit Fidock instead, sending the Englishman into a spin and down to eighth. From then on Fidock had an uphill battle, eventually finishing fifth, the place awarded to him on the final lap after Lopez pitted ahead of him. With Puschke driving on to victory, there was nothing more that Fidock could have done, and the German Vod:Bul driver, who had also won the 2014 Supercup championship, claimed his trophy by scoring exactly 300 points; in the end, 28 points ahead of Fidock.

Meanwhile, an extremely angry Jernej Simoncic, driving the other Vod:Bul, had an incident-filled race, though he was at one point as high as fourth. The Slovenian spun off on lap 44 and retired. This ended any chances of Vod:Bul catching CSG, handing the Constructor's crown to the Manchester team for the second year running. CSG could celebrate on the podium, with Cooper finishing third, while team mate Tom Parker came home sixth. Cooper's late-year surge was too late to play him into the championship, but it did see him finish third behind Puschke and Fidock.

Nordsjoen could celebrate a fine end to their year; second to Canapino, while the equally hard-charging Florian Geier came home fourth, clinching the fastest lap of the race along the way. Canapino's result saw him rise to fourth in the Drivers' championship, finally ahead of the absent Lewis Redshaw.

Behind the championship contenders, Sven de Vries finished the season for Woods Racing with another fine result: eighth, which saw Woods comfortably finish as the best of the lower-order teams. Ninth and tenth went to the Midnights of Pedro Melim and Tom van der Voort; a good finish to the season, but a sad reflection of a difficult 2015 in which they were all-but eclipsed by their sister team CSG.

Canapino and Simoncic had returned to their customary seats for the final race, as had Marcos Riffel in the Edonis. Tobias Olsson was the only "new" driver for the race, driving the second Red Archer in Brazil, having previously raced for Nijo in Singapore. Unfortunately, the Swedish driver was disqualified.

With both Red Archers present for the first time since Japan, the only cars missing were those of Torrent Motorsports, who missed the final race completely.

At the back of the grid, there were many fond farewells to Phoenix F1 who had already announced that Brazil was to be their final race. The team, that had competed on-and-off since as far back as 2003 had an unfortunate ending, with both drivers Kieran Ryan and Mikko Jakonen retiring within laps of each other. The Irish veteran Ryan, who also was driving in his final race, after 13 years of competition, had his engine blow while double champion Jakonen struggled throughout the race and unfortunately crashed out.

What was not known at the time was that this was also the final race of CSG Racing, who announced their withdrawal from the League early into 2016. Phoenix and CSG would be the only teams that would not return for the following season.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap	Grid
1	13	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing - Potentia	1:07.486	—	1
2	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:07.512	+0.026	2
3	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:07.534	+0.048	3
4	21	Fran Lopez	Red Archer - Valiant	1:07.626	+0.140	4
5	24	Tom Parker	CSG Racing - Potentia	1:07.731	+0.245	5
6	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:07.737	+0.251	6
7	19	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:07.740	+0.254	7
8	15	Jernej Simoncic	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:07.925	+0.439	8
9	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	1:07.995	+0.510	9
10	8	Sven de Vries	Woods - Trinity	1:08.113	+0.627	10
11	7	Pedro Melim	Midnight - Potentia	1:08.300	+0.814	11
12	4	Marcos Riffel	Edonis - Valiant	1:08.334	+0.849	12
13	6	Tobias Olsson	Red Archer - Valiant	1:08.501	+1.016	231
14	69	Jason Muscat	Edonis - Valiant	1:08.608	+1.122	13
15	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	1:08.880	+1.395	14
16	20	Dewald Nel	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:08.929	+1.443	15
17	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:09.055	+1.570	16
18	2	Wopke Hoekstra	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:09.131	+1.646	24
19	83	Bart De Vos	Kernow - Trinity	1:09.366	+1.881	17
20	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	1:09.561	+2.076	18
21	10	Ari Nieminen	Nijo - Trinity	1:09.621	+2.135	19
22	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	1:10.486	+3.001	20
23	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	1:10.577	+3.091	21
24	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	1:10.583	+3.098	22

Notes:

• ¹ — Tobias Olsson had a 10-place grid penalty for exiting and rejoining qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix.
• ² — Wopke Hoekstra had a 10-place grid penalty for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner at the United States Grand Prix.

Race

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts.
1	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	71	1:23:09.717	3	25
2	19	Agustin Canapino	Nordsjoen - Martex	71	+15.328	7	20
3	13	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing - Potentia	71	+19.041	1	16
4	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	71	+36.084	2	13
5	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	71	+36.523	6	11
6	24	Tom Parker	CSG Racing - Potentia	71	+36.956	5	10
7	21	Fran Lopez	Red Archer - Valiant	71	+1:37.016	4	9
8	8	Sven de Vries	Woods - Trinity	70	+1 Lap	10	8
9	7	Pedro Melim	Midnight - Potentia	70	+1 Lap	11	7
10	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	70	+1 Lap	9	6
11	69	Jason Muscat	Edonis - Valiant	70	+1 Lap	13	5
12	2	Wopke Hoekstra	Hawkeye - Potentia	70	+1 Lap	24	4
13	20	Dewald Nel	Green Stripes - Valiant	70	+1 Lap	15	3
14	4	Marcos Riffel	Edonis - Valiant	69	+2 Laps	12	2
15	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	69	+2 Laps	16	1
16	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	69	+2 Laps	18
17	10	Ari Nieminen	Nijo - Trinity	69	+2 Laps	19
18	83	Bart De Vos	Kernow - Trinity	69	+2 Laps	17
19	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	69	+2 Laps	21
Ret	15	Jernej Simoncic	Vod:Bul - Valiant	44	Did not Finish	8
Ret	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	44	Engine	20
Ret	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	44	Accident	22
Ret	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	21	Suspension	14
DSQ	6	Tobias Olsson	Red Archer - Valiant	23	Disqualified	23

Notes:

• ¹ — Fran Lopez had 25 seconds added to race time for avoidable contact.
• ¹ — Pedro Melim had a total 20 seconds added to race time; 10 seconds for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner and 10 seconds for avoidable contact.
• ³ — Jason Muscat was classified as a finisher, having completed over 75% race distance.

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos	Driver	Points
	1	Philipp Puschke	300
	2	David Fidock	272
	3	Alex Cooper	217
1	4	Agustin Canapino	181
1	5	Lewis Redshaw	176

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos	Constructor	Points
	1	CSG Racing-Potentia	426
	2	Vod:Bul-Valiant	402
	3	Nordsjoen-Martex	369
	4	Hawkeye-Potentia	321
	5	Red Archer-Valiant	248

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
• Bold text indicates the 2015 Superleague Champion.

External links

• Official results
• Broadcast replay

Preceded by: 2015 United States Grand Prix	GPVWC Superleague 2015 season	Succeeded by: 2016 Australian Grand Prix
Preceded by: 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix	Brazilian Grand Prix	Succeeded by: 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix