Nico Hulkenberg converted his pole position into his first GP2 Series victory on his home circuit at the Nurburgring this afternoon. The ART rookie controlled the race from start to finish, eventually crossing the line 13.9sec clear of Piquet GP's Roldan Rodriguez.
The victory moves Hulkenberg to within a point of series leader Romain Grosjean (Addax), who had done an excellent job to recover from 14th to sixth before his car stopped with a mechanical problem two laps before the finish.
Rodriguez may have had to pace to challenge Hulkenberg, but was jumped by Lucas di Grassi (Racing Engineering) at the start and then spent the remainder of the stint bottled up behind the Brazilian, allowing Hulkenberg to open a gap of around eight seconds. Rodriguez jumped di Grassi in the pits, but by then Hulkenberg was too far down the road for him to have any hope of challenging for the lead.
Meanwhile, di Grassi exited the pits following his own stop to find himself in a four-way battle for sixth with Grosjean, Alvaro Parente (Ocean) and Alberto Valerio (Piquet). A single mistake cost him two places when both Grosjean and Parente slipped past, although the threat from Valerio was neutralized when the Silverstone winner parked with a suspected electrical problem two laps later.
Andi Zuber avoided all the drama around him to finish third for Fisichella ahead of Addax's Vitaly Petrov, Super Nova's Javier Villa, Parente and di Grassi. Grosjean's late retirement bumped Sergio Perez up to eighth, giving the Arden rookie the final point and pole for tomorrow's sprint race.
Elsewhere the race passed mostly without incident, although Luiz Razia's great effort to jump from last to 19th in the first three corners was wasted when he was collected by a spinning Luca Filippi, while a scrap between Pastor Maldonado and Diego Nunes ended in a collision that forced Nunes to retire, and caused damage to Maldonado's car that prompted a trip into the barriers a couple of corners later.