Coletti hangs on for GP2 victory

The Trident driver appeared to have the race in hand after passing pole-sitter Dani Clos (Racing Engineering) at the start of lap seven. He was cruising to victory when the safety car was needed just four laps from the finish after Julian Leal and Davide Rigon clashed in spectacular fashion on the start/finish straight.

Coletti then appeared to make a mistake at the restart as he went wide at Turn 12 towards the end of the lap, but second-placed Giedo van der Garde was unable to get a run on him and had to settle for second.

Van der Garde nearly fell into the clutches of his Addax team-mate Charles Pic on the final lap, but the Frenchman ended up losing a place rather than gaining one as iSport's Sam Bird completed a charge from seventh on the grid by taking the final podium place on the backstraight.

Bird nearly suffered late drama at the restart, as he was clipped by team-mate Marcus Ericsson exiting the last corner. The Swede damaged his front wing, which dropped him out of the points after an impressive drive had taken him from ninth on the grid to fifth.

While Bird was adding to his race one podium, the two men who joined him in the top three yeterday - Romain Grosjean and Jules Bianchi - both missed out on points after they clashed with each other on the opening lap.

Bianchi had got around the outside of Grosjean as the pack bunched up for the first time at Turn 12. But DAMS driver Grosjean then stayed on the outside for the next corner and then had the inside for Turn 14.

They appeared to be getting though cleanly, but Grosjean then clipped Bianchi as he put the power down. The ART driver spun and dropped to 23rd position, while yesterday's race winner had to pit for a new front wing.

Results - 23 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                  Time/Gap
 1.  Stefano Coletti      Trident             41m40.571s
 2.  Giedo van der Garde  Addax                 + 2.184s
 3.  Sam Bird             iSport                + 2.756s
 4.  Charles Pic          Addax                 + 3.243s
 5.  Fairuz Fauzy         Super Nova            + 3.502s
 6.  Josef Kral           Arden                 + 5.038s
 7.  Jules Bianchi        ART                   + 5.373s
 8.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport                + 5.602s
 9.  Jolyon Palmer        Arden                 + 7.143s
10.  Romain Grosjean      DAMS                  + 7.501s
11.  Esteban Gutierrez    ART                   + 7.892s
12.  Michael Herck        Coloni                + 9.261s
13.  Johnny Cecotto       Ocean                + 10.697s
14.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova           + 11.862s
15.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering   + 12.140s
16.  Davide Valsecchi     AirAsia              + 12.237s
17.  Max Chilton          Carlin               + 12.359s
18.  Luiz Razia           AirAsia              + 12.826s
19.  Kevin Mirocha        Ocean                + 12.950s
20.  Fabio Leimer         Rapax                + 13.708s
21.  Pal Varhaug          DAMS                 + 14.195s
22.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Trident              + 15.582s

Retirements:

     Davide Rigon         Coloni                 18 laps
     Julian Leal          Rapax                  18 laps
     Christian Vietoris   Racing Engineering      3 laps