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Valerio takes first GP2 victory

Alberto Valerio took his first GP2 Series win with a commanding performance in the feature race at Silverstone today

Having qualified a surprise second on the grid yesterday, Valerio (Piquet) was initially beaten off the line by pole-sitter Romain Grosjean.

But the Brazilian kept the Barwa Addax driver within range and the pair spent five laps scrapping over the lead before Valerio caught Grosjean napping at Abbey on lap eight and moved into the lead.

With a clear track ahead Valerio quickly opened a gap, but his cause was helped by the fact that Grosjean was struggling for pace.

Having just lost a place to Valerio he almost immediately found himself under pressure from Lucas di Grassi. That fight was also over quickly, di Grassi muscling his way into second after just a couple of laps.

That should have secured the Racing Engineering driver's claim to the runner-up position, but Nico Hulkenberg had turned in a stunning sequence of laps after choosing to make his compulsory pitstop relatively early, and propelled himself into the fight.

Di Grassi found himself relegated back to third, but as Hulkenberg began to struggle over the final few laps, di Grassi was able to close back in and reclaim second with three laps remaining.

That left Hulkenberg to deal with fellow rookie Sergio Perez (Arden), who had also taken advantage of an early stop to bring himself into contention from the back of the grid, but despite the Mexican's best efforts he was unable to find a way past the ART car, and Hulkenberg held on for the final podium spot.

Perez was fourth ahead of Grosjean, who moves back into the championship lead after team-mate Vitaly Petrov finished down in 15th after being pushed wide onto the grass at the first corner.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time
 1.  Alberto Valerio      Piquet              55m32.255s
 2.  Lucas di Grassi      Racing Engineering  +   1.238s
 3.  Nico Hulkenberg      ART                 +   5.289s
 4.  Sergio Perez         Arden               +   5.550s
 5.  Romain Grosjean      Addax               +  14.409s
 6.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean               +  16.392s
 7.  Pastor Maldonado     ART                 +  22.184s
 8.  Andreas Zuber        Fisichella          +  26.889s
 9.  Michael Herck        DPR                 +  36.321s
10.  Davide Valsecchi     Durango             +  39.715s
11.  Diego Nunes          iSport              +  40.509s
12.  Roldan Rodriguez     Piquet              +  41.479s
13.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering  +  45.601s
14.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova          +  46.247s
15.  Vitaly Petrov        Addax               +  46.415s
16.  Davide Rigon         Trident             +  57.096s
17.  Giacomo Ricci        DPR                 +1m10.760s
18.  Nelson Panciatici    Durango             +1m16.251s
19.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                +1m19.149s
20.  Luiz Razia           Fisichella          +    1 lap

Retirements:

     Javier Villa         Super Nova          30 laps
     Giedo van der Garde  iSport              29 laps
     Ricardo Teixeira     Trident             8 laps
     Alvaro Parente       Ocean               1 lap
     Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                0 laps
     Edoardo Mortara      Arden               0 laps

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