2015 United States Grand Prix

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  2015 United States Grand Prix

Race details
Race 16 of the 2015 Superleague season
Date	8th October, 2015
Official name	2015 United States Grand Prix
Location	Circuit of the Americas, Austin
Course	Permanent racing facility 3.427 mi / 5.515 km
Distance	56 laps, 191.912 mi / 308.852 km
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing-Potentia
Time	1:31.625
Fastest Lap
Driver	Tom Parker	CSG Racing-Potentia
Time	1:32.498 on lap 55
Podium
First	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing-Potentia
Second	Tom Parker	CSG Racing-Potentia
Third	David Fidock	Hawkeye-Potentia

The 2015 United States Grand Prix was the sixteenth and penultimate round of the 2015 Superleague season, taking place at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas, on 8th October.

The race was a thumping victory for CSG Racing with Alex Cooper taking pole and the race win, while his team-mate Tom Parker scored the fastest lap and completed a 1-2 for the team, having started 6th on the grid. Remarkably, this was the only double-podium finish for the team in 2015, but nevertheless saw them emphatically take the lead in the Constructors' Championship from Vod:Bul. After the race it would be between just the two to decide, going into the final race in Brazil.

In the two-horse Driver's Championship, reigning champion David Fidock's third-place saw the Englishman again outscore his rival Philipp Puschke who languished down in 7th, his worst result since Canada. Puschke still had a 14-point lead heading into the final round, but anything was possible.

Puschke was just one of a plethora of drivers penalised after being deemed to have exceeded track limits during qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Each had a 5-grid-place penalty. Of the top five qualifiers, three of them were duly penalised. Puschke, Florian Geier and Sven de Vries, in that order, were all demoted.

David Jundt, in his second consecutive race for Nordsjoen, started the race fourth as a result of these penalties and crossed the line fourth as well. Significantly, despite Geier and de Vries qualifying behind Puschke, they finished the race ahead of him; Geier in fifth and de Vries in sixth, besting his result in Abu Dhabi and thereby securing Woods Racing's highest finish of the year.

Fran Lopez, who had started third on the grid, slipped down the order to eighth at race end, and then was slapped with a 25-second race-time penalty for avoidable contact. This elevated Formula Challange champion Eric Stranne to eighth. Stranne was doing one more race for Edonis Engineering, this time in place of Marcos Riffel. His eighth was the best finish for Edonis since Singapore, or, in other words, the best since Eric Stranne had last driven for the team.

Stranne was one of the few driver changes for the round. Bart De Vos was back in the Kernow, as was Jordan Weekes for Torrent Motorsports, both driver and team having missed Abu Dhabi; Weekes had been banned for one race. However, Torrent still only fielded one car, as did Red Archer.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap	Grid
1	13	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing - Potentia	1:31.625	—	1
2	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:31.636	+0.011	2
3	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:31.838	+0.213	81
4	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:31.924	+0.299	91
5	8	Sven de Vries	Woods - Trinity	1:31.980	+0.355	101
6	21	Fran Lopez	Red Archer - Valiant	1:32.035	+0.410	3
7	19	David Jundt	Nordsjoen - Martex	1:32.397	+0.772	4
8	88	Jordan Weekes	Torrent - Potentia	1:32.773	+1.147	5
9	24	Tom Parker	CSG Racing - Potentia	1:32.799	+1.174	6
10	7	Pedro Melim	Midnight - Potentia	1:33.063	+1.438	7
11	2	Wopke Hoekstra	Hawkeye - Potentia	1:33.127	+1.502	11
12	69	Jason Muscat	Edonis - Valiant	1:33.145	+1.520	12
13	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	1:33.431	+1.805	13
14	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:33.439	+1.813	181
15	4	Eric Stranne	Edonis - Valiant	1:33.445	+1.820	14
16	20	Dewald Nel	Green Stripes - Valiant	1:33.609	+1.983	15
17	83	Bart De Vos	Kernow - Trinity	1:33.668	+2.043	16
18	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	1:33.681	+2.056	211
19	15	Douwe Tapper	Vod:Bul - Valiant	1:33.834	+2.209	241
20	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	1:34.639	+3.014	221
21	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	1:35.343	+3.718	17
22	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	1:35.719	+4.094	19
23	10	Ari Nieminen	Nijo - Trinity	1:35.872	+4.247	23
24	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	1:35.918	+4.293	20

Notes:

• ¹ — Philipp Puschke, Florian Geier, Sven de Vries, Ben Horrill, Roy Schroten, Douwe Tapper and Kenney Lybeer all had a 5-place grid penalty for exceeding track limits during qualifying at the previous round.

Race

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts.
1	13	Alex Cooper	CSG Racing - Potentia	56	1:29:33.351	1	25
2	24	Tom Parker	CSG Racing - Potentia	56	+2.490	6	20
3	1	David Fidock	Hawkeye - Potentia	56	+5.978	2	16
4	19	David Jundt	Nordsjoen - Martex	56	+15.579	4	13
5	27	Florian Geier	Nordsjoen - Martex	56	+16.474	9	11
6	8	Sven de Vries	Woods - Trinity	56	+20.383	10	10
7	14	Philipp Puschke	Vod:Bul - Valiant	56	+48.368	8	9
8	4	Eric Stranne	Edonis - Valiant	56	+1:07.320	14	8
91	21	Fran Lopez	Red Archer - Valiant	56	+1:15.053	3	7
10	88	Jordan Weekes	Torrent - Potentia	56	+1:15.149	5	6
112	7	Pedro Melim	Midnight - Potentia	56	+1:34.915	7	5
12	15	Douwe Tapper	Vod:Bul - Valiant	55	+1 Laps	24	4
13	83	Bart De Vos	Kernow - Trinity	55	+1 Laps	16	3
14	11	Ben Horrill	Green Stripes - Valiant	55	+1 Laps	18	2
15	5	Kenney Lybeer	Nijo - Trinity	55	+1 Laps	22	1
16	10	Ari Nieminen	Nijo - Trinity	55	+1 Laps	23
17	12	Mark Wicks	Kernow - Trinity	54	+2 Laps	19
18	45	Kieran Ryan	Phoenix - Trinity	54	+2 Laps	17
19	46	Mikko Jakonen	Phoenix - Trinity	53	+3 Laps	20
203	69	Jason Muscat	Edonis - Valiant	52	Engine	12
Ret	2	Wopke Hoekstra	Hawkeye - Potentia	22	Did not Finish	11
Ret	25	Tom van der Voort	Midnight - Potentia	11	Suspension	13
Ret	9	Roy Schroten	Woods - Trinity	2	Did not Finish	21
Ret	20	Dewald Nel	Green Stripes - Valiant	0	Accident	15

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

• Bold text indicates who still has a mathematical chance of becoming World Champion.

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos	Driver	Points
	1	Philipp Puschke	275
	2	David Fidock	261
1	3	Alex Cooper	201
1	4	Lewis Redshaw	176
	5	Agustin Canapino	161

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos	Constructor	Points
1	1	CSG Racing-Potentia	400
1	2	Vod:Bul-Valiant	377
	3	Nordsjoen-Martex	336
	4	Hawkeye-Potentia	306
	5	Red Archer-Valiant	239

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

External links

• Official results
• Broadcast replay

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