Petrov beats Hulkenberg in feature

Hulkenberg initially made a good start but then went wide at Turn 2, allowing Petrov and Sergio Perez to get past. He was able to reclaim second from Perez fairly quickly, but Petrov proved a tougher challenge.

The ART driver's best chance came in the spell immediately after the pitstops when he appeared to have stronger pace, but a couple of brave lunges at the final corner came to nothing.

The gap see-sawed by as much as two seconds over the final half of the race, but Hulkenberg was never able to get quite close enough to have a genuine shot and the Russian crossed the line 0.3 seconds ahead.

Nobody else was close to the pace of the leading duo, with third-placed Sergio Perez more than 15 seconds down the road at the finish, but the Arden rookie still performed well and his first main series podium was a deserved reward.

A string of assorted dramas shuffled the lower points positions late in the race, but fourth-placed Alvaro Parente and fifth-placed Roldan Rodriguez had been in the mix for the entire afternoon.

Edoardo Mortara finished sixth ahead of Luca Filippi, with Pastor Maldonado taking the final point and pole for tomorrow's sprint race.

Among the less fortunate was Davide Valsecchi, who was on target for eighth for most of the race before dropping three places in the last couple of laps.

Lucas di Grassi had run as high as fourth before slowing and retiring with two laps remaining, and Karun Chandhok spent most of the afternoon trying to overtake Valsecchi, only to pull off the track and out of the race just moments after he'd finally done so.

It was also a difficult day for series newcomer Stefano Coletti, who endured a drive-through penalty for jumping the start and another for crossing the white line at the pit exit before retiring at mid-distance.

Also feeling the wrath of the stewards was Hungary sprint race winner Giedo van der Garde (jumping the start), Franck Perera (push start) and Davide Rigon (speeding in pitlane).

Pos Driver                Team                        Time
 1. Vitaly Petrov         Barwa Addax Team            56:24.157
 2. Nico Hulkenberg       ART Grand Prix              + 0.396
 3. Sergio Perez          Telmex Arden International  + 16.004
 4. Alvaro Parente        Ocean Racing Technology     + 22.922
 5. Roldan Rodriguez      Piquet GP                   + 26.891
 6. Edoardo Mortara       Telmex Arden International  + 38.444
 7. Luca Filippi          Super Nova Racing           + 44.153
 8. Pastor Maldonado      ART Grand Prix              + 52.496
 9. Kamui Kobayashi       DAMS                        + 59.464
10. J.D'Ambrosio          DAMS                        + 59.959
11. Davide Valsecchi      Barwa Addax Team            + 1'05.003
12. Diego Nunes           iSport International        + 1'07.196
13. Davide Rigon          Trident Racing              + 1'07.612
14. Michael Herck         DPR                         + 1'14.817
15. G.van der Garde       iSport International        + 1'16.354
16. Franck Perera         DPR                         + 1'17.358
17. Andreas Zuber         Scuderia Coloni             + 1'19.836
18. Alberto Valério       Piquet GP                   + 1'44.040
19. Javier Villa          Super Nova Racing           + 1 Lap
20. Lucas Di Grassi       Racing Engineering          + 3 Laps

Retirements:

    Driver                  Team                        Laps
    Karun Chandhok          Ocean Racing Technology      26
    Stefano Coletti         Durango                      16
    Luiz Razia              Scuderia Coloni              3
    N.Panciatici            Durango                      3
    Ricardo Teixeira        Trident Racing               2
    Daniel Clos             Racing Engineering           0

Fastest lap: Hulkenberg, 1:47.041 on lap 18