Esteban Gutierrez wins Silverstone GP2 feature race for Lotus

Leimer led away from pole in a race started under the safety car due to soaking wet conditions. After six laps under the safety car, during which Daniel de Jong (Rapax) managed to crash into the back of Rodolfo Gonzalez (Caterham), Leimer pulled out a huge lead in his Racing Engineering machine.

Leimer was nine seconds in front when the safety car was deployed again to recover James Calado's stricken Lotus GP car, which suffered a gearbox failure at Farm on lap 18.

All of Leimer's rivals had pitted by this point, but for some reason he did not. Any chance he had of extending his lead again, before making his mandatory stop, was extinguished by a third safety car to recover Stefano Coletti's Coloni car, which had crashed on slicks at Chapel.

This opened the door for Gutierrez to inherit the victory, as he had jumped ahead of both Addax driver Johnny Cecotto Jr and iSport's Jolyon Palmer during the pitstop cycle. All of the frontrunning cars went for two more wet tyres during the stops, although the track was drying towards the end.

"Strategy played a big role in this race," said Gutierrez. "I focused on not making a mistake. I'm really happy and grateful for this victory."

Cecotto finished second ahead of Palmer, while Nigel Melker produced some late-race heroics in his Ocean-run machine to hold off new points leader Luiz Razia (Arden).

Erstwhile points leader Davide Valsecchi went for a bold early pitstop strategy, which helped him up to seventh from his lowly starting position. He finished just behind DAMS team-mate Felipe Nasr.

Results - 25 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                    Time/Gap
 1.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus               1h00m22.657s
 2.  Johnny Cecotto       Addax                   + 1.700s
 3.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport                  + 5.257s
 4.  Nigel Melker         Ocean                   + 6.368s
 5.  Luiz Razia           Arden                   + 6.523s
 6.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                    + 7.552s
 7.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                    + 9.051s
 8.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham                + 9.841s
 9.  Max Chilton          Carlin                 + 11.116s
10.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin                 + 11.958s
11.  Fabrizio Crestani    Lazarus                + 12.130s
12.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering     + 12.843s
13.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni                 + 14.982s
14.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident                + 15.701s
15.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering     + 16.421s
16.  Simon Trummer        Arden                  + 16.818s
17.  Josef Kral           Addax                  + 17.833s
18.  Victor Guerin        Ocean                  + 18.167s
19.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax                  + 23.183s
20.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Lazarus                + 24.345s
21.  Julian Leal          Trident                + 38.351s
22.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport                 + 39.831s
23.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham                + 2 laps

Retirements:

     Stefano Coletti      Coloni                   20 laps
     James Calado         Lotus                    17 laps
     Daniel de Jong       Rapax                      1 lap