Alex Lynn took his second victory of the season, breaking away at the start and avoiding the battles behind him for the remaining points positions at the Hockenheimring on Sunday morning.
Starting from the front row of the grid, the DAMS driver got a better start than pole sitter Antonio Giovinazzi, with Lynn slotting into the lead ahead of fellow Briton Oliver Rowland into the first corner.
Giovinazzi received a five-second time for pushing Arthur Pic off track on the run down to that first corner, but the Prema Racing driver was eliminated around half distance when he clipped Rowland’s MP Motorsport machine as he attempted to pass the Briton, breaking his front wing and suffering a puncture.
Giovinazzi’s retirement moved Gustav Malja up to third, but the Rapax driver could not find a way passed, instead dropping behind Feature race winner Sergey Sirotkin, who then passed Rowland for second after battling hard with the Renault Sport Academy driver for a number of laps.
Rowland could not maintain his podium position however as he suffered with tyre degradation issues once more, with Pic taking his first top three finish of the season after finding away passed both his Rapax team-mate Malja and Rowland.
Luca Ghiotto drove another strong race to finish fourth for Trident ahead of Rowland, while Pierre Gasly took sixth despite starting the race at the back of the field following his exclusion from the Feature race.
Gasly gained six places on the opening lap, and then drove both strongly and intelligently to retain his championship lead, although he now shares the lead with Sirotkin.
Raffaele Marciello was another to struggle with tyre wear, finishing seventh for Russian Time, while Malja faded with tyre issues of his own to take the final point, but only after Artem Markelov took a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
The Russian gambled on a pit stop that almost paid off for him, with Markelov at some points up to three seconds a lap faster than those ahead of him, but he ran out of laps to get far enough up the field to be able to score any points.
There were two Virtual Safety Car periods during the race, one to remove Giovinazzi’s car from the run-off, and another to clear up Nabil Jeffri’s Arden Motorsport machine from the same turn after a collision with Norman Nato.
Hockenheimring Sprint Race Result
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