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Nico Hulkenburg strengthened his Teutonic grip on the GP2 Series in the two rounds at Valencia. Though he lost out in the feature race to title rival Vitaly Petrov, he came through to win the sprint and extend his points lead.

Feature Race

With the transfer of his former title rival Romain Grosjean to the Renault F1 team, Hulkenburg seemed to be left to dominate the weekend totally against a lacklustre GP2 field. He topped the practice times, and stormed to pole position for the feature, but then threw away his shot at victory to cede top spot to Grosjean's former Barwa Addax team mate Petrov.

Hulkenburg made a good start from pole in his ART car, but then slid wide at the second turn, to allow Petrov and Sergio Perez (Arden) through. Although he re-passed Perez without too much hassle, Petrov produced a stoical defensive drive to take the win.

Hulkenburg had a go at the Russian after the mandatory pit stops, when his pace seemed quicker on the new tyres, but he couldn't make a move stick, and eventually he dropped back. Though he charged back for one last late attempt in the final laps, Petrov kept his cool to take the win and the ten points.

The gap in quality between the front two and the rest was highlighted by Perez taking third, some 16 seconds down the road, in what was his first GP2 podium ever. He had a lonely race after the front two, with Perez able to keep a substantial gap over fourth placed man Alvaro Parente (Ocean Racing). Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) finished just behind after a strong race to take 5th.

Edoardo Mortara took sixth place in the second of the Arden cars, ahead of perennial GP2 averageman Luca Filippi, who took seventh for Super Nova, while Pastor Maldonado initially took the final point in 8th place, before falling foul of a floor height infringement and being relegated to the back of the sprint race grid.

That promoted GP2 Asia champion Kamui Kobayashi to 8th, and the pole for the second race. Davide Valsecchi, who replaced Grosjean at Barwa Addax, had looked on course for the final point until he was bundled out of the position in the last few laps.

Other unfortunates included frontrunner Lucas di Grassi, who suffered a mechanical problem with two laps to go, after running as high as fourth early on, while Karun Chandhok retired with further technical problems in the closing stages.

The stewards had a busy time of it as the cars went to play around the street track, with newcomer Stefano Coletti getting a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, only to gather a second penalty for crossing the white line on the exit of the pit lane when he emerged from his first one.

Penalties were also handed out to Giedo van der Garde for a jump start, Davide Rigon for pit lane speeding and Franck Perera for getting a push start.

11 Davide Valsecchi (Barwa Addax) +1:05.003, 12 Diego Nunes (iSport) +1:07.196, 13 Davide Rigon (Trident) +1:07.612, 14 Michael Herck (DPR) +1:14.817, 15 Giedo van der Garde (iSport) +1:16.354, 16 Franck Perera (DPR) +1:17.358, 17 Andreas Zuber (Coloni) +1:19.836, 18 Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) +1:44.040, 19 Javier Villa (Super Nova) +1 lap, 20 Lucas Di Grassi (Racing Eng) +3 laps, R Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) 26 laps, R Stefano Coletti (Durango) 16 laps, R Luiz Razia (Coloni) 3 laps, R Nelson Panciatici (Durango) 3 laps, R Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) 2 laps, R Dani Clos (Racing Eng) 0 laps.

* - Excluded for floor height infringement.

Sprint Race

Hulkenburg made up for losing out in the feature race by coming through to win the sprint race on Sunday in Valencia, after benefiting from a series of clashes ahead of him.

Hulkenburg leapt up from 7th to 4th early on, and then made his way up to the front after front row men Luca Filippi and Kamui Kobayashi collided with each other at the second corner. Filippi was out on the spot, and Kobayashi had to pit to repair front end damage.

So Hulkenburg forced his way up to the front, to take the win by nearly 12 seconds, from Perez, who took another GP2 podium, keeping ahead of Petrov all the way to the end of the race.

The DAMS car of Jerome d'Ambrosio came through to take 4th place, from Diego Nunes of iSport, also impressing for once in a long and mostly rubbish season. The final point in the sprint went to Karun Chandhok, who fought back from 20th on the grid to hold off Davide Rigon of Trident.

Chandhok benefited from a series of clashes during the race, which saw Lucas di Grassi, Giedo van der Garde, Andreas Zuber and Michael Herck eliminated on the opening lap, and Alvaro Parente and Edoardo Mortara collide later on in the race.

Hulkenburg, fresh from his fourth win in the last six GP2 races, now heads to Spa with a lead of 20 points in the championship over Petrov. Realistically, with Grosjean off in F1 and di Grassi suffering a pointless Valencia weekend, not to mention the utter fecklessness of the rest of the 2009 GP2 crop, we are left with a two-way fight for the title, across the remaining rounds at Spa, Monza, and a standalone event in Portugal.

11 Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) +39.416, 12 Edoardo Mortara (Arden) +40.966, 13 Luiz Razia (Coloni) +45.114, 14 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) +48.860, 15 N Panciatici (Durango) +1:18.778, 16 Franck Perera (DPR) +2 laps, R Dani Clos (Racing Eng) 11 laps, R Stefano Coletti (Durango) 10 laps, R Álvaro Parente (Ocean Racing) 5 laps, R Roldán Rodríguez (Piquet GP) 2 laps, R Luca Filippi (Super Nova) 1 laps, R Davide Valsecchi (Barwa Addax) 0 laps, R Michael Herck (DPR) 0 laps, R Giedo van der Garde (iSport) 0 laps, R Andreas Zuber (Coloni) 0 laps, R Lucas Di Grassi (Racing Eng) 0 laps.

Drivers Standings -
1 Hulkenburg 75pts, 2 Petrov 55pts, 3 Grosjean 45pts, 4 di Grassi 40pts, 5 Maldonado 31pts, 6 Filippi 24pts, 7 d'Ambrosio 21pts, 8 Zuber, Villa 20pts, 10 Perez 18pts, 11 Valerio 16pts, 12 Parente 14pts, 13 van der Garde, Mortara 13pts, 15 Rodriguez 12pts, 16 Vaalsecchi, Chandhok 10pts, 18 Kobayashi 8pts, 19 Nunes 2pts, 20 Rigon 1pt.

Team Standings -
1 ART Grand Prix 106pts, 2 Barwa Addax 100pts, 3 Super Nova 44pts, 4 Racing Eng 40pts, 5 Arden 31pts, 6 DAMS 29pts, 7 Piquet GP 28pts, 8 Ocean Racing 24pts, 9 FMS/Colini 20, 10 iSport 15pts, 11 Durango 10pts, 12 Trident 1pt.