Valsecchi takes last gasp GP2 win

Until the closing stages, Herck and his team-mate Giacomo Ricci had looked set to give their DPR team a shock one-two - four and a half years after the squad's last wins.

But Valsecchi mounted a last gasp charge to pass both Ricci and Herck in quick succession and claim his iSport squad's second win of the weekend.

Outside front row starter Herck had taken the lead at the start, with Ricci passing Alexander Rossi (Meritus) for second at a safety car restart shortly afterwards.

Valsecchi made rapid progress from seventh on the grid and was soon in third behind the two DPR cars. But until the final half dozen laps, Herck and Ricci looked comfortable up front.

The points leader had speed in reserve, though, and in the final laps Valsecchi increased his pace and piled pressure on Ricci, eventually making it through with an inventive move that required several corners to complete.

He then hunted down Herck and dived down the inside at the end of the back straight on the penultimate lap, before pulling away to win by 1.9s - giving him a 19 point championship lead at the series' halfway point.

Herck and Ricci held on to the remaining podium places, with Addax's Sergio Perez charging from the midfield through to fourth.

Perez escaped serious damage in the opening lap tangle that caused the early safety car - the Mexican and Josef Kral touching, and sending the Super Nova car bouncing into Meritus' Luca Filippi.

Friday winner Oliver Turvey took the second iSport car to fifth, having spent much of the race behind polesitter Max Chilton (Ocean). The Formula 3 graduate lost ground on lap one but then held his own among the frontrunners and resisted ART's Jules Bianchi - who scorched through the field after stalling on the grid - and Arden's Charles Pic to score the final point.

Pic's team-mate Javier Villa was another man to stall at the start, while Addax's Giedo van der Garde was making progress through the group behind Chilton until he tangled with Fabio Leimer (Ocean).

Pos  Driver                Team           Time/Gap
 1.  Davide Valsecchi      iSport       41m00.566s
 2.  Michael Herck         DPR            + 1.969s
 3.  Giacomo Ricci         DPR            + 4.227s
 4.  Sergio Perez          Addax         + 11.618s
 5.  Oliver Turvey         iSport        + 12.235s
 6.  Max Chilton           Ocean         + 19.619s
 7.  Jules Bianchi         ART           + 20.018s
 8.  Charles Pic           Arden         + 20.686s
 9.  Alexander Rossi       Meritus       + 26.380s
10.  Vladimir Arabadzhiev  Rapax         + 27.038s
11.  Javier Villa          Arden         + 27.400s
12.  Marcus Ericsson       Super Nova    + 28.307s
13.  Dani Clos             Trident       + 29.574s
14.  Christian Vietoris    DAMS          + 30.993s
15.  Daniel Zampieri       Rapax         + 31.691s
16.  Edoardo Piscopo       DAMS          + 32.213s
17.  Luca Filippi          Meritus       + 34.854s
18.  Alberto Valerio       Coloni        + 39.649s
19.  Giedo van der Garde   Addax       + 1m03.697s
20.  Plamen Kralev         Trident     + 1m07.219s

Retirements:

     Will Bratt            Coloni      18 laps
     Fabio Leimer          Ocean       16 laps
     Josef Kral            Super Nova  0 laps
     Sam Bird              ART         0 laps