Jolyon Palmer drove a brilliant race, taking full advantage of Carlin’s superior tyre strategy, to score an emphatic GP2 win in Hungary.
Palmer started the race on the medium tyre and was able to go further than his nearest rivals before switching to another set of medium Pirellis.
Making full use of his fresher rubber he pulled off a great move on Marcus Ericsson for the lead.
Such was Palmer’s grip advantage he went on to win by over 15 seconds.
DAMS racer Ericsson had taken the lead with a fabulous move on Carlin’s Felipe Nasr as the Brazilian exited the pits following his stop.
The pair staged an epic duel for the runner-up spot, with the Swede holding on by the finest of margins.
In a frenetic race, Racing Engineering’s Fabio Leimer had a quiet run to fourth, but with points leader Stefano Coletti having a disastrous outing, that equalled a handy points haul.
After a dismal qualifying Coletti’s hopes of points were already slim, but they became nil when he tangled with Jake Rosenzweig on the opening lap, which forced him to pit for repairs.
Stephane Richelmi claimed fifth, while Simon Trummer took sixth following excellent strategic work from Rapax, who kept the Swiss driver out until almost the last minute before bringing him in for his fresh tyres. It worked a treat.
MW Arden pulled a similar move with Mitch Evans, who led for quite a while and eventually took seventh.
Eighth place, and pole for Sunday’s reversed-grid race, went to Nathaniel Berthon.
After dominating qualifying, it was an awful race for Russian Time. Tom Dillmann made a poor start from pole and dropped to sixth, but neither he nor Sam Bird had any race pace. Bird took 10th, Dillmann 20th.
Results - 36 laps:
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1. Jolyon Palmer Carlin 57m14.477s
2. Marcus Ericsson DAMS +15.407s
3. Felipe Nasr Carlin +15.794s
4. Fabio Leimer Racing Engineering +19.433s
5. Stephane Richelmi DAMS +19.740s
6. Simon Trummer Rapax +21.499s
7. Mitch Evans Arden +22.584s
8. Nathanel Berthon Trident +36.439s
9. James Calado ART +38.203s
10. Sam Bird Russian Time +44.671s
11. Rio Haryanto Addax +51.951s
12. Daniel de Jong MP +52.520s
13. Alexander Rossi Caterham +54.815s
14. Dani Clos MP +55.990s
15. Julian Leal Racing Engineering +56.302s
16. Stefano Coletti Rapax +57.202s
17. Vittorio Ghirelli Lazarus +58.621s
18. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Hilmer +1m05.995s
19. Ricardo Teixeira Trident +1m16.133s
20. Tom Dillmann Russian Time +1m33.788s
21. Johnny Cecotto Jr Arden +1 lap
22. Rene Binder Lazarus +1 lap
23. Jon Lancaster Hilmer +1 lap
Retirements:
Daniel Abt ART 34 laps
Jake Rosenzweig Addax 32 laps
Sergio Canamasas Caterham 17 laps
