Hulkenberg completes double win
Nico Hulkenberg backed up his win in yesterday's GP2 feature race with victory in today's sprint race at the Nurburgring, and in doing so moved to the top of the points table
ART's German driver goes into the halfway point of the season with 46 points, putting him four points clear of Romain Grosjean.
In drizzly conditions, Hulkenberg made swift progress from eighth on the grid to quickly climb to second behind the fast-starting Vitaly Petrov. The Russian's 2.4-second lead had been eroded to just 0.6s when he was dealt a drive-through penalty for hitting Lucas di Grassi's Racing Engineering machine at the start.
With the Barwa Addax car out of the way, Hulkenberg was able to press on to take the chequered flag unopposed, and had pulled out a gap of 26.4s when he finally crossed the line.
Ocean's Alvaro Parente and DAMS' Kamui Kobayashi completed the podium, although Petrov remained a contender for a minor placing despite his penalty when he recoverd to third only to snatch his left front wheel on a kerb and spin, dropping back to fifth.
He finally made it to fourth, finishing just ahead of team-mate Grosjean, who had done a superb job to climb though the field after a grid penalty left him starting back in 22nd. Javier Villa claimed the final point for Super Nova after seeing off a challenge from Jerome D'Ambrosio (DAMS).
A switch to slicks for Piquet duo Alberto Valerio and Roldan Rodriguez failed to pay off, with both drivers finishing a lap down, although the appearance of a dry line in the final stages of the race played into their hands to the point where they were lapping five seconds quicker than the rest of the field, with Valerio finally taking the honours for fastest lap.
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap 1. Nico Hulkenberg ART 46m49.622s 2. Alvaro Parente Ocean + 26.454s 3. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS + 33.501s 4. Vitaly Petrov Addax + 33.688s 5. Romain Grosjean Addax + 44.754s 6. Javier Villa Super Nova + 50.075s 7. Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS + 52.520s 8. Daniel Clos Racing Engineering + 53.961s 9. Pastor Maldonado ART + 56.954s 10. Davide Valsecchi Durango +1m14.361s 11. Diego Nunes iSport +1m29.582s 12. Michael Herck DPR +1m33.086s 13. Nelson Panciatici Durango +1m34.670s 14. Luiz Razia Fisichella +1m35.180s 15. Ricardo Teixeira Trident +1m39.570s 16. Franck Perera DPR + 1 lap 17. Alberto Valerio Piquet + 1 lap 18. Luca Filippi Super Nova + 2 laps 19. Rodolfo Gonzalez Trident + 2 laps 20. Sergio Perez Arden + 3 laps Retirements: Roldan Rodriguez Piquet 14 laps Andreas Zuber Fisichella 11 laps Edoardo Mortara Arden 7 laps Giedo van der Garde iSport 1 laps Lucas di Grassi Racing Engineering 0 laps Karun Chandhok Ocean 0 laps
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