Esteban Gutierrez took his first career GP2 victory in dominant fashion in the sprint race on the streets of Valencia.
The ART driver and Sauber Formula 1 reserve pounced on a mistake by polesitter Josef Kral (Arden) under braking for Turn 2 at a restart to take the lead. From there he took a few laps to settle down, before easing away from the chasing pack.
Luiz Razia also passed Kral on the restart, but the AirAsia driver could not hang onto the race leader. In the end, he did a solid job of keeping championship frontrunner Giedo van der Garde (Addax) at bay throughout the race.
Van der Garde made his way up from seventh to fourth on the opening lap, and on lap four he and Dani Clos were past Kral, who would later spin out.
The race remained pretty static at the front until the closing stages, when fourth-placed Clos' Racing Engineering car started to lose pace. AirAsia's Davide Valsecchi made easy work of the Spaniard three laps from the end, while Michael Herck (Coloni) failed with an attack on the final lap to move up from sixth.
Gutierrez's teammate Jules Bianchi charged from 24th on the grid to seventh, just missing out on the points. The Frenchman was given a scare as he outdragged Kevin Mirocha to the line though, as the Ocean driver made a dangerous swerve towards him in a last ditch attempt to keep the place.
Championship leader Romain Grosjean's race lasted only five corners. The DAMS driver made contact with two cars under braking for Turn 2, and then spun into the path of Rodolfo Gonzalez and Charles Pic three corners later to bring out the safety car.