Hulkenberg completes double win

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