Patric Niederhauser won the ninth round of the GP3 Series at Hockenheim by a close margin over America's Conor Daly, following a lengthy red flag and safety car period for rain.
After a downpour just before the start, the race began on time behind the safety car, with the field on a mixture of slick and wet tires. It was clearly wet-weather rubber conditions, so poleman Daniel Abt (Lotus) dived into the pits at the end of lap one, followed by points leader Mitch Evans (MW Arden) and the dozen or so others who had started on slicks.
That left Daly's wet-shod Lotus car in the lead, ahead of similarly tired Niederhauser and Kevin Ceccon (Ocean), the leaders of the 15 cars that started on wets. But as the rain intensified, the red flag was shown.
Following the rain delay, the race was restarted - after another lengthy safety car period - for the remaining seven laps. Although Daly had a half-second lead, Niederhauser quickly latched onto his gearbox and pulled off a superb attacking move, which ended at the Mercedes Arena with him grasping the lead.
A succession of fastest laps allowed him to extend a 1.8sec lead, which Daly then trimmed to 0.6sec by the checkered flag. Ceccon finished a distant third, ahead of Trident's Giovanni Venturini. Matias Laine took fifth, just holding title challenger Aaro Vainio at bay.
Evans could only recover to ninth, outside the points, so Vainio closes the gap at the top of the standings to five points. Poleman Abt finished eighth, giving him pole for Sunday's reversed-grid race, too.