Patronise F1

Nico Hulkenburg strengthened his bid for the GP2 Series crown in Budapest by taking his third win on the trot in the feature race. He failed to make it four in a row in the sprint though, with Giedo van der Garde taking his first ever GP2 win.

Feature Race

Nico Hulkenburg wasn't looking the favourite for the win in the longer feature race in Hungary, starting from fifth on the grid at a track renowned for a lack of overtaking chances, but he romped to his third successive maximum score to cement his place at the top of the standings.

Hulkenburg leapt up to third place in the first couple of laps in his ART Grand Prix car, before moving past the Super Nova machine of Javier Villa during the mandatory pit stop window. But he remained in second place still behind the long-time race leader and pole sitter Lucas di Grassi (Racing Engineering) after di Grassi emerged from his own stop just in front of the ART man.

Hulkenburg didn't hang around to make his move though, using di Grassi's cold tyre disadvantage to make the pass on him into turn two, and extending a comfortable lead from there to the end of the race. Di Grassi held on for second, albeit some 15 seconds behind the flying German.

Villa took the final podium spot, keeping Hulkenburg's team mate Pastor Maldonado behind him for the closing laps. Maldonado had to settle for fourth, ahead of the Durango machine of Davide Valsecchi, who wrestled fifth place from Luca Filippi (Super Nova) with a fantastic pass around the outside of the Italian at the first corner in the closing laps of the race.

Filippi had to settle for 6th, while Giedo van der Garde (iSport) scored his first points since the opening round in Barcelona in 7th and Davide Rigon scored Trident Racing's first points of the season, with 8th place also giving him pole position for the reverse grid of the sprint race.

Hulkenburg's triumph was added to by failure for his main title rivals at the Barwa Addax team. Romain Grosjean, second in the points standings, could only finish tenth from a lowly grid position, while his Russian team mate Vitaly Petrov retired midway through the race.

The early stages of the race were marred by an opening lap incident at the second corner, which saw Andi Zuber (Fisichella) spin across the track and Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) spin in avoidance and collect Luiz Razia (Fisichella) and Sergio Perez (Arden).

11 Dani Clos(Racing Eng) +46.053, 12 Edoardo Mortara (Arden) +50.977, 13 Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) +51.269, 14 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +1:11.155, 15 Michael Herck (DPR) +1:11.230, 16 Jerome D'Ambrosio (DAMS) +1:11.997, 17 Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing) +2 laps, R Diego Nunes (iSport) 36 laps, R Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) 33 laps, R Vitaly Petrov (Barwa Addax) 20 laps, R Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) 1 lap, R Andi Zuber (Fisichella) 0 laps, R Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) 0 laps, R Sergio Perez (Arden) 0 laps, R Luiz Razia (Fisichella) 0 laps.

Sprint Race

The sprint race win went to Giedo van der Garde, who took his first ever GP2 Series win for iSport after holding off Luca Filippi for almost the entire race distance.

Van der Garde beat Davide Rigon away from the front row of the grid, and Rigon's race went from bad to worse two corners later when he was hit by Pastor Maldonado in an ill-judged move. The Venezuelan got a drive-through for his move, but Rigon was out of the race. Maldonado compounded his awful race by spinning into retirement shortly after completing his drive through.

So van der Garde led from Filippi, and held him off until the flag, with the gap never growing to more than a couple of car lengths. He had to survive a late safety car period, caused by Trident man Ricardo Teixeira showering the track with gravel after recovering from a spin, but he took the flag with style, to score former frontrunning team iSport's first win of the season.

Behind the front two, the battle for the other points places was incredibly close. Javier Villa in the second Super Nova car held third for most of the race, but a late spin dropped him to fifth, elevating Lucas di Grassi to the final podium spot and the recovering Romain Grosjean to 4th, as the Frenchman closed up a little on Hulkenburg in the championship. Grosjean could have grabbed third on the restart after the safety car, but di Grassi was able to fend him off.

The final point was claimed by Alvaro Parente for Ocean Racing, while Hulkenburg had a quiet run to 9th, outside the points.

Nevertheless, it was another successful weekend for the ART car of Hulkenburg. He now has a 12 point lead in the championship with four rounds of the championship remaining. In the teams standings, things are a lot closer, with only 2 points separating ART Grand Prix from Barwa Addax.

11 Dani Clos (Racing Eng) +11.731, 12 Vitaly Petrov (Barwa Addax) +11.822, 13 Roldan Rodriguez (Piquet GP) +12.353, 14 Edoardo Mortara (Arden) +13.112, 15 Diego Nunes (iSport) +13.662, 16 Sergio Perez (Arden) +15.157, 17 Andi Zuber (Fisichella) +21.727, 18 Franck Perera (DPR) +22.046, 19 Ricardo Teixeira (Trident) +25.285, 20 Nelson Panciatici (Durango) +39.825, R Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP) 26 laps, R Jerome D'Ambrosio (DAMS) 19 laps, R Luiz Razia (Fisichella) 18 laps, R Pastor Maldonado (ART) 9 laps, R Davide Rigon (Trident) 0 laps, R Michael Herck (DPR) 0 laps.

Drivers Standings -
1 Hulkenburg 57pts, 2 Grosjean 45pts, 3 Petrov 41pts, 4 Di Grassi 40pts, 5 Maldonado 31pts, 6 Filippi 22pts, 7 Zuber, Villa 20pts, 9 d'Ambrosio 18pts, 10 Valerio 16pts, 11 van der Garde 13pts, 12 Mortara, Valsecchi 10pts, 14 Parente, Chandhok 9pts, 16 Rodriguez 8pts, 17 Kobayashi, Perez 7pts, 19 Rigon 1pt.

Team Standings -
1 ART Grand Prix 88pts, 2 Barwa Addax 86pts, 3 Super Nova 42pts, 4 Racing Eng 40pts, 5 DAMS 25pts, 6 Piquet GP 24pts, 7 Fisichella Motor Sport 20pts, 8 Ocean Racing 18pts, 9 Arden 17pts, 10 iSport 13pts, 11 Durango 10pts, 12 Trident Racing 1pt.