Patronise F1

Feature Race

Hulkenburg began the feature race on pole position, and never looked like ceding the lead as he led from lights to flag to take his first win of the season, after starting the year as one of the title favourites.

The Hulk eventually took the chequered flag some 13.9 seconds clear of the chasing pack, with the Piquet GP car of Roldan Rodriguez winning the battle to be best of the rest to pick up his first points of what has been a disappointing season to date.

Rodriguez's hopes of the victory were dashed right at the start, when he was beaten to the first corner by the Racing Engineering car of Lucas di Grassi. He was then stuck behind di Grassi's car for the whole first stint before the mandatory pit stops, and by that point Hulkenburg had established a crushing 8 second lead. The Spaniard got past Di Grassi during the stops, but he could do nothing to reel in the flying German out front.

Di Grassi was the big loser in the stops, slipping back to sixth place, where he them spent the afternoon scrapping with the points leader coming into the weekend, Romain Grosjean, who was on a recovery drive from 14th on the grid, the second Piquet car of Alberto Valerio, and the Ocean Racing machine of Alvaro Parente.

The four-way scrap for the lower points places kept the middle of the race entertaining, but was decided when first Valerio and then Grosjean stopped with mechanical problems. This was a devastating result for Grosjean's title ambitions, and left him well down the grid for Sunday's sprint event.

While the battle was raging behind, Andi Zuber kept himself quiet to take the final podium spot behind Hulkenburg and Rodriguez for Fisichella Motorsport, while Grosjean's team mate and title rival Vitaly Petrov took 4th for Barwa Addax, holding off the Super Nova car of Javier Villa in the process.

Alvaro Parente won the scrap with Di Grassi for sixth, while Sergio Perez benefited from the retirements ahead to move into eighth place, taking the final point and the pole position for the reverse grid sprint race in the process.

Further back, the race was short on action, although Pastor Maldonado, a strong contender in the championship coming into the weekend, tangled with Diego Nunes and forced them both to retire, while perennial useless mess Luca Filippi tangled with Luiz Razia on the opening lap.

11 Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) +1:09.066, 12 Giedo van der Garde (iSport) +1:09.909, 13 Davide Valsecchi (Durango) +1:15.106, 14 Michael Herck (DPR) +1:15.721, 15 Rodolfo Gonzalez (Trident) +1:22.721, 16 Dani Clos (Racing Eng) +1 lap, 17 Edoardo Mortara (Arden) +1 lap, 18 Romain Grosjean (Barwa Addax) +2 laps, 19 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +2 laps, R Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) 24 laps, R Franck Perera (DPR) 21 laps, R Diego Nunes (iSport) 10 laps, R Pastor Maldonado (ART Grand Prix) 10 laps, R Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) 6 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 0 laps, R Luiz Razia (Fisichella) 0 laps.

Sprint Race

Hulkenburg put in another masterful display on Sunday to take victory in the damp sprint race, moving himself four points clear of Grosjean in the title race in the process.

Starting from eighth on the reverse grid, Hulkenburg was masterful in the early stages, as a light rain fell on the track and made conditions tricky, to move up to second place behind the similarly-fast Vitaly Petrov. Petrov was then dealt with by a Webber-esque drive-through penalty for driving into DI Grassi at the start of the race.

With clear track ahead of him, Hulkenburg strolled to his second win of the weekend, eventually finishing some 26 seconds clear of second placed man Alvaro Parente. Kamui Kobayashi, the champion of last winter's GP2 Asia series, took third place to net his best result of the year, while Patrov managed to recover as high as third place before spinning back down to fifth.

The Russian eventually finished fourth, one place ahead of Grosjean, who had shown remarkable determination to come from 22nd on the grid (thanks to his retirement coupled with a grid penalty for an incident in the feature race) to finish 5th as he attempted to minimise the damage to his title challenge. Javier Villa took the final point available in sixth place.

At the halfway point of the championship, then, Hulkenburg finds himself four points ahead of Grosjean, with Petrov just a single point further back. The championship moves next to Hungary, then to Valencia, Spa and Monza before the season finale at a standalone event at the Algarve circuit in Portugal. Right now, it seems like the title battle will go right down to the wire.

11 Diego Nunes (iSport) +1:29.582, 12 Michael Herck (DPR) +1:33.086, 13 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +1:34.670, 14 Luiz Razia (Fisichella) +1:35.180, 15 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) +1:39.570, 16 Franck Perera (DPR) +1 lap, 17 Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) +1 lap, 18 Luca Filippi (Super Nova) +2 laps, 19 Rodolfo Gonzalez (Trident) +2 laps, 20 Sergio Perez (Arden) +3 laps, R Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) 14 laps, R Andreas Zuber (Fisichella) 11 laps, R Edoardo Mortara (Arden) 7 laps, R Giedo van der Garde (iSport) 1 lap, R Lucas di Grassi (Racing Eng) 0 laps, R Karun Chandhok (Ocean) 0 laps.

Drivers Standings -
1 Hulkenburg 46pts, 2 Grosjean 42pts, 3 Petrov 41pts, 4 Maldonado, Di Grassi 26pts, 6 Zuber 20pts, 7 D'Ambrosio 18pts, 8 Valerio 16pts, 9 Filippi 13pts, 10 Villa 12pts, 11 Mortara 10pts, 12 Chandhok 9pts, 13 Parente, Rodriguez 8pts, 15 Kobayashi, Perez 7pts, 17 Valsecchi 6pts, 18 Van der Garde 5pts.

Team Standings -
1 Barwa Addax 83pts, 2 ART Grand Prix 72pts, Racing Eng 26pts, 4 Super Nova, DAMS 25pts, 6 Piquet GP 24pts, 7 Fisichella 20pts, 8 Arden, Ocean Racing 17pts, 10 Durango 6pts, 11 iSport 5pts.