Jolyon Palmer has won the GP2 feature race at the Hungaroring after taking a winning gamble on tyres to scorch ahead of his competitors.
The Briton, driving for Carlin, gambled on Medium tyres and stayed out a lot longer as his rivals pitted off the option tyres. Palmer, switching to options late on managed to use the extra grip provided by the softer Pirelli rubber to storm to victory.
Indeed it was Tom Dillmann who started on pole position but made a bad get away as the lights went out allowing eventual second placed man Marcus Ericsson to sneak past into third place. Palmer managed to take advantage as well getting past Dillmann and Ericsson – however, the Swedish DAMS driver didn’t let Palmer get away with taking the place that easily – they were involved in strong podium scrap until Ericsson finally bit the bullet and pitted on lap seven.
The Carlin man then managed to really stretch his legs in the clear air and put in fast lap after fast lap, eventually winning by more than fifteen seconds.
Third place was Felipe Nasr who managed to last a few laps longer than Ericsson on the option tyre but couldn’t get far enough ahead to cover the pit stop and had to settle for a podium and third place.
However, the Brazilian was nightly close to second place but Ericsson made his GP2 racer as wide as he possibly could to stop the second Carlin driver from sneaking through.
Stefano Coletti, the championship leader, didn’t figure in the points due to a collision earlier on meaning the Monegasque needed an extra stop – he does however stay on 135 points – twelve ahead of Nasr on 123. Fabio Leimier – who finished fourth on the road – has now broken into the triple figures and is on 100, Sam Bird failed to score in tenth place and remains on 91 points.
