Bianchi wins Lausitz race one

The Frenchman sat behind his pole-sitting team-mate Valtteri Bottas for the first six laps of the race, before pouncing on the rookie at Turn 1 to make a clean pass.

He slowly extended his lead up to as much as three seconds, before dropping his pace in the last few laps.

Bottas put in a solid performance to complete an ART one-two, keeping Jean-Karl Vernay behind him despite coming under intense pressure from the Signature driver during the middle of the race.

Behind the top three, Brendon Hartley took a strong fourth place for Carlin, after sustaining race-long pressure from Sam Bird.

The majority of the action in the race came behind the top five. Henkie Waldschmidt held sixth place early on, but he was under pressure from Roberto Merhi and Christian Vietoris.

The pair had started on the seventh row of the grid, but came through the first lap carnage (which included top five starters Atte Mustonen and Cesar Ramos stalling on the grid) to be in the hunt for points.

Merhi eventually found a way past Waldschmidt and became one of the fastest drivers on track once he was in clear air, while Vietoris was unable to find a way by.

Eighth place for the German gives him pole position for Sunday's race, although that had looked in doubt at times as Stefano Coletti tried on several occasions to find a way through.

But Coletti's chances of securing a reversed-grid pole position ended when he was given a drive-through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags on the first lap, and he eventually dropped to 15th place.

Pos Driver                   Team         Car             Gap
 1. Jules Bianchi            ART          D/M      30m18.861s
 2. Valtteri Bottas          ART          D/M          +2.776
 3. Jean-Karl Vernay         Signature    D/V          +4.606
 4. Brendon Hartley          Carlin       D/V          +5.823
 5. Sam Bird                 Mucke        D/M          +6.872
 6. Roberto Merhi            Manor        D/M          +7.796
 7. Henkie Waldschmidt       SG           D/M         +11.833
 8. Christian Vietoris       Mucke        D/M         +12.603
 9. Tiago Geronimi           Signature    D/V         +15.518
10. Matteo Chinosi           Prema        D/M         +27.559
11. Adrien Tambay            ART          D/M         +28.100
12. Mika Maki                Signature    D/V         +29.179
13. Kevin Mirocha            HBR          D/M         +31.900
14. Christopher Zanella      Motopark     D/M         +33.218
15. Stefano Coletti          Prema        D/M         +35.518
16. Johnny Cecotto Jr        HBR          D/M         +44.426
17. Cesar Ramos              Manor        D/M         +48.292
18. Pedro Henrique           Manor        D/M         +49.350
19. Carlo van Dam            Kolles       D/V         +52.451
20. Basil Shaaban            Prema        D/M         +53.554
21. Jake Rosenzweig          Carlin       D/V         +53.950
22. Marco Wittmann           Mucke        D/M         +56.796
23. Andrea Caldarelli        SG           D/M       +1:11.909
24. Esteban Gutierrez        ART          D/M       +1:13.141

Retirements

    Alexander Sims           Mucke        D/M           1 lap
    Atte Mustonen            Motopark     D/M          0 laps
    Alexandre Marsoin        SG           D/M          0 laps


Fastest lap, Coletti 1:18.022