Mortara beats Grosjean to sprint win

Mortara made an excellent start from third on the grid and led into the first corner but Grosjean had started equally strongly, climbing from eighth to third within the space of two laps, and then taking second from Jerome D'Ambrosio a couple of laps later.

At that point Mortara had a lead of 1.2 seconds, but Grosjean slowly ground that down and by lap 14 the Frenchman was within striking range. He made his move with a lunge at Turn 1, but Mortara was able to defend.

That would prove to be Grosjean's only genuine opportunity to pass, and Mortara gradually opened the gap again to eventually cross the line 1.5s clear.

D'Ambrosio did not have the pace to match the leaders but nor did he ever look in any real danger, and had a relatively quiet run to his second podium of the weekend. iSport's Giedo van der Garde had an equally solid if rather lonely run to fourth ahead of polesitter Kamui Kobayashi, who was never able to recover from a sluggish start.

The fight for the remaining points positions was considerably more heated. Super Nova's Luca Filippi got himself into sixth midway through the race, but as the laps ticked away the Italian was clearly struggling for pace and a queue quickly formed behind him.

ART's Pastor Maldonado, who had earlier had a lucky escape when he bumped team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, managed to get past and quickly vanished down the road, but Hulkenberg's hopes of doing the same were dashed when he spun following a touch from Diego Nunes.

Barwa Campos' Vitaly Petrov was also on target for points, but outbraked himself and fell behind the two ART cars while trying to pass Filippi.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time
 1.  Edoardo Mortara      Arden               39m55.235s
 2.  Romain Grosjean      Barwa Campos        +   1.251s
 3.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                +   6.518s
 4.  Giedo van der Garde  iSport              +  14.638s
 5.  Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                +  17.170s
 6.  Pastor Maldonado     ART                 +  20.099s
 7.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova          +  28.971s
 8.  Diego Nunes          iSport              +  29.258s
 9.  Vitaly Petrov        Barwa Campos        +  29.433s
10.  Lucas di Grassi      Racing Engineering  +  31.038s
11.  Alvaro Parente       Ocean               +  32.026s
12.  Luiz Razia           Fisichella          +  33.167s
13.  Alberto Valerio      Piquet              +  33.789s
14.  Nico Hulkenberg      ART                 +  34.278s
15.  Giacomo Ricci        DPR                 +  38.913s
16.  Davide Valsecchi     Durango             +  40.811s
17.  Sergio Perez         Arden               +  42.258s
18.  Nelson Panciatici    Durango             +  59.664s
19.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering  +  59.747s
20.  Ricardo Teixeira     Trident             +1m00.052s
21.  Davide Rigon         Trident             +    1 lap

Retirements:

     Karun Chandhok       Ocean               21 laps
     Javier Villa         Super Nova          17 laps
     Michael Herck        DPR                 13 laps
     Andi Zuber           Fisichella           8 laps
     Roldan Rodriguez     Piquet               0 laps