Luca Filippi won his first race after his switch to Scuderia Coloni with victory in the feature race at the Nurburgring. The Italian jumped polesitter Charles Pic during the pitstops to claim the win, his first in the main series since the end of 2009.
Pic made a good getaway at the start to retain the lead, with Filippi following him in second place. Jules Bianchi meanwhile took third place from compatriot Romain Grosjean down the inside of Turn 1.
The safety car was deployed after Pal Varhaug (who raced with a black band across the nose of his car in memory of his Norwegian compatriots killed in the Oslo attacks) made contact with Johnny Cecotto at Turn 4, putting both out of the race. Just ahead Davide Valsecchi hit the rear of Christian Vietoris's car on the exit of Turn 4, the pair losing their front wing and rear wing respectively.
After the restart the positions remained the same at the front until the pitstops began. Giedo van der Garde was the first man to stop from fifth place on lap 7. He would be able to jump Jules Bianchi after the Frenchman suffered a slower pitstop as he changed all four tyres rather than the mandatory two.
Up front Pic opened up a gap over Filippi, but stopped a lap earlier and this enabled the Italian to come out ahead. From there Filippi soon began to open up a gap over Pic, extending his advantage to 5.5 seconds before taking the checkered flag.
Pic held on in second place ahead of Grosjean, while Bianchi recovered to fourth back past van der Garde. The Dutchman came under pressure late on from Marcus Ericsson, with the Swede taking fifth under breaking for the chicane on the penultimate lap.
Alvaro Parente had held seventh place but was handed a drive through penalty in the closing stages for not respecting the track limits. This promoted the lively battle for eighth behind into a battle for seventh and the front row of the reverse grid for the sprint race.
Sam Bird had taken eighth from Clos and Turn 1 on lap 27, but the Spaniard regained the place a lap later. Once they were promoted to seventh and eighth they held their positions to the finish, with Bird keeping Fabio Leimer at bay.
Leimer had run sixth early on but lost out in the pitstops. He made contact with both Adam Carroll and Luiz Razia late on before finishing ninth.
Race results – 34 laps:
Pos | Drivers | Teams | Gap |
1 | Luca Filippi | Scuderia Coloni | 1:01:06.975 |
2 | Charles Pic | Barwa Addax Team | 5.558 |
3 | Romain Grosjean | DAMS | 6.877 |
4 | Jules Bianchi | Lotus ART | 33.491 |
5 | Marcus Ericsson | iSport International | 37.716 |
6 | Giedo van der Garde | Barwa Addax Team | 41.146 |
7 | Dani Clos | Racing Engineering | 45.977 |
8 | Sam Bird | iSport International | 46.461 |
9 | Fabio Leimer | Rapax | 47.075 |
10 | Rodolfo González | Trident Racing | 48.452 |
11 | Johnny Cecotto | Ocean Racing Technology | 72.166 |
12 | Michael Herck | Scuderia Coloni | 72.581 |
13 | Esteban Gutiérrez | Lotus ART | 73.285 |
14 | Davide Valsecchi | Caterham Team AirAsia | 73.447 |
15 | Julian Leal | Rapax | 80.824 |
16 | Adam Carroll | Super Nova Racing | 83.404 |
17 | Fairuz Fauzy | Super Nova Racing | 85.492 |
18 | Max Chilton | Carlin | 86.566 |
19 | Josef Král | Arden International | 91.615 |
20 | Jolyon Palmer | Arden International | +1 lap |
21 | Ãlvaro Parente | Carlin | +2 laps |
Ret | Luiz Razia | Caterham Team AirAsia | 29 laps |
Ret | Stefano Coletti | Trident Racing | 28 laps |
Ret | Christian Vietoris | Racing Engineering | 1 lap |
Ret | Pal Varhaug | DAMS | 0 laps |
Ret | Kevin Mirocha | Ocean Racing Technology | 0 laps |