Sergey Afanasiev takes second Auto GP win at damp Oschersleben

Afanasiev's cause was helped when polesitter Fabrizio Crestani (Lazarus) was wiped out by Samuele Buttarelli (TP Formula) at the first corner, allowing the Russian to slip into the lead and build a gap of over four seconds before he and Tambay made their compulsory stops.

Tambay elected to stop earlier, and the undercut worked well as he rapidly closed on Afanasiev when the Russian emerged from the pits on fresh, but cold, rubber.

The gap fell to 0.3 seconds as Tambay took several looks down Afanasiev's inside, but the Russian's tyres slowly came back to him and a chain of fastest laps allowed him to keep Tambay at bay and take victory by 0.644s.

"It was lucky for me what happened to rivals, but it's very slippery and usually something happens," Afanasiev said. "After my stop the tyres were still cold and the balance was completely changed, but I held on and it feels awesome."

As was the case at the front, the battle for third closed significantly immediately after the pitstops, with Formula Renault 3.5 race-winner Kevin Korjus leading Kevin Ceccon (Ombra Racing) and Fabio Onidi (Lazarus) in a three-way fight.

The trio were often separated by less than one second, but DAMS driver Korjus did not put a foot wrong and was on his way to third until running a mechanical issue forced him to retire on the penultimate lap.

That left Onidi to challenge Ceccon for the final step on the podium, and the Italian took up the cause eagerly - only for a mistake on the final lap to drop him from Ceccon's rear, forcing him to settle for fourth.

Adrian Campos Jr, MP Motorsport's Daniel de Jong and TP Formula's Pasquale di Sabatino rounded out the top seven, with Giovanni Venturini (Durango) a lonely eighth.

Campos' Bruno Mendez finished one lap down after being handed a drive-through for a clash with Durango's Giuseppe Cipriani which forced the latter to retire.

The race stewards meanwhile called up Samuele Buttarelli and the TP Formula team manager immediately after the race and handed him a five-place grid penalty for the next race in Valencia following his outlandish lap one collision with Crestani.

Results - 24 laps:

Pos  Driver                Team       Time/Gap
 1.  Sergey Afanasiev      DAMS     32m58.137s
 2.  Adrien Tambay         Campos     + 0.644s
 3.  Kevin Ceccon          Ombra     + 16.135s
 4.  Fabio Onidi           Lazarus   + 19.329s
 5.  Adrian Campos Jr      Campos    + 24.415s
 6.  Daniel de Jong        MP        + 28.249s
 7.  Pasquale di Sabatino  TP        + 31.690s
 8.  Giovanni Venturini    Durango   + 34.183s
 9.  Bruno Mendez          Campos      + 1 lap
10.  Kevin Korjus          DAMS       + 2 laps

Retirements:

     Francesco Dracone     Emmebi        1 lap
     Fabrizio Crestani     Lazarus       1 lap
     Giuseppe Cipriani     Durango      0 laps
     Samuele Buttarelli    TP           0 laps