Nico Hulkenberg won his third GP2 race on the trot and extended his series lead with a dominant victory at the Hungaroring today. The German, who started from fifth on the grid, got himself up to third in the opening laps, and then leapfrogged Javier Villa in the pits to move up to second.
That only left him with polesitter Lucas di Grassi to deal with, and he did that with a neat move at Turn 2 after the Racing Engineering driver rejoined the track following his own stop a couple of laps later. Once Hulkenberg had a clear track ahead of him he never looked threatened, eventually crossing the finish line 15.6sec clear of di Grassi.
Villa held on to third for Super Nova, although he was made to work hard for it by Hulkenberg's ART teammate Pastor Maldonado, who kept the Spaniard under constant pressure over the closing laps.
Durango's Davide Valsecchi made a return to form after a difficult few rounds to finish fifth, capping the result with the best overtaking move of the race when he drove around the outside of Luca Filippi's Super Nova car at Turn 1 with four laps remaining.
The feel-good vibes continued through to the final points-scoring places, with Giedo van der Garde scoring iSport's first points since Barcelona with his seventh place, and Trident Racing returnee Davide Rigon getting his team off the mark with its first point of the year for eighth.
There was less reason to celebrate at Barwa Addax, which came away empty-handed after Vitaly Petrov retired at mid-distance after circulating almost two seconds off the pace of the leaders, while Romain Grosjean's efforts to recover from the back of the grid ended with him in 10th -- a good result considering how difficult it is to overtake at the Hungaroring.
That said, the Frenchman's early progress was helped by an opening lap crash at Turn 2 that accounted for a large chunk of the midfield. The accident was triggered when Andreas Zuber was pushed wide and spun across the circuit and into the gravel, while behind him Alberto Valerio also lost control and ended up collecting Luiz Razia and Sergio Perez.