Hulkenberg dominates in Germany

The ART rookie controlled the race from start to finish, eventually crossing the line 13.9s clear of Piquet GP's Roldan Rodriguez.

The victory moves Hulkenberg to within a point of series leader Romain Grosjean (Addax), who had done an excellent job to recover from 14th to sixth before his car stopped with a hydraulic problem two laps before the finish.

Rodriguez may have had to pace to challenge Hulkenberg, but was jumped by Lucas di Grassi (Racing Engineering) at the start and then spent the remainder of the stint bottled up behind the Brazilian, allowing Hulkenberg to open a gap of around eight seconds.

Rodriguez jumped di Grassi in the pits, but by then Hulkenberg was too far down the road for him to have any hope of challenging for the lead.

Meanwhile, di Grassi exited the pits following his own stop to find himself in a four-way battle for sixth with Grosjean, Alvaro Parente (Ocean) and Alberto Valerio (Piquet). A decision to change all four tyres despite the cold track temperature cost him two places when both Grosjean and Parente slipped past, although the threat from Valerio was neutralised when the Silverstone winner parked with a suspected electrical problem two laps later.

Andi Zuber avoided all the drama around him to finish third for Fisichella ahead of Addax's Vitaly Petrov, Super Nova's Javier Villa, Parente and di Grassi. Grosjean's late retirement bumped Sergio Perez up to eighth, giving the Arden rookie the final point and pole for tomorrow's sprint race.

Elsewhere the race passed mostly without incident, although Luiz Razia's great effort to jump from last to 19th in the first three corners was wasted when he was collected by a spinning Luca Filippi, while a scrap between Pastor Maldonado and Diego Nunes ended in a collision that forced Nunes to retire, and caused damage to Maldonado's car that prompted a trip into the barriers a couple of corners later.

Pos  Driver               Team                    Time/Gap
 1.  Nico Hulkenberg      ART                 1h00m10.875s
 2.  Roldan Rodriguez     Piquet               +   13.931s
 3.  Andreas Zuber        Fisichella           +   21.765s
 4.  Vitaly Petrov        Addax                +   29.116s
 5.  Javier Villa         Super Nova           +   31.534s
 6.  Alvaro Parente       Ocean                +   48.000s
 7.  Lucas di Grassi      Racing Engineering   +   50.366s
 8.  Sergio Perez         Arden                +   51.117s
 9.  Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                 + 1m04.414s
10.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                 + 1m05.226s
11.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean                + 1m09.066s
12.  Giedo van der Garde  iSport               + 1m09.909s
13.  Davide Valsecchi     Durango              + 1m15.106s
14.  Michael Herck        DPR                  + 1m15.721s
15.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Trident              + 1m22.721s
16.  Daniel Clos          Racing Engineering   +     1 lap
17.  Edoardo Mortara      Arden                +     1 lap
18.  Romain Grosjean      Addax                +    2 laps
19.  Nelson Panciatici    Durango              +    2 laps

Retirements:

     Alberto Valerio      Piquet               24 laps
     Franck Perera        DPR                  21 laps
     Diego Nunes          iSport               10 laps
     Pastor Maldonado     ART                  10 laps
     Ricardo Teixeira     Trident              6 laps
     Luca Filippi         Super Nova           0 laps
     Luiz Razia           Fisichella           0 laps