Jolyon Palmer took full advantage of his Carlin team’s superior tire strategy to score an emphatic GP2 win in Hungary.

Palmer started the race on the medium tire and was able to go further than his nearest rivals before switching to another set of medium Pirellis. Making full use of his fresher rubber, he pulled off a great move on Marcus Ericsson for the lead.

Such was Palmer’s grip advantage he went on to win by over 15 seconds.

DAMS racer Ericsson had taken the lead with a fabulous move on Carlin’s Felipe Nasr as the Brazilian exited the pits following his stop. The pair staged an epic duel for the runner-up spot, with the Swede holding on by the finest of margins.

In a frenetic race, Racing Engineering’s Fabio Leimer had a quiet run to fourth, but with points leader Stefano Coletti having a disastrous outing, that equalled a handy points haul.

After a dismal qualifying Coletti’s hopes of points were already slim, but they became nil when he tangled with Jake Rosenzweig on the opening lap, which forced him to pit for repairs.

Stephane Richelmi claimed fifth, while Simon Trummer took sixth following excellent strategic work from Rapax, who kept the Swiss driver out until almost the last minute before bringing him in for his fresh tires, which proved a wise move. MW Arden pulled a similar move with Mitch Evans, who led for quite a while and eventually took seventh. Eighth place, and pole for Sunday’s reversed-grid race, went to Nathaniel Berthon.

After dominating qualifying, it was an awful race for the Russian Time team. Tom Dillmann made a poor start from pole and dropped to sixth, but neither he nor Sam Bird had any race pace. Bird took 10th, Dillmann 20th with worn tires and damage from a clash with Johnny Cecotto Jr.

Results - 36 laps:Pos  Driver               Team                  Time/Gap  1.  Jolyon Palmer        Carlin              57m14.477s 2.  Marcus Ericsson      DAMS                  +15.407s 3.  Felipe Nasr          Carlin                +15.794s 4.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering    +19.433s 5.  Stephane Richelmi    DAMS                  +19.740s 6.  Simon Trummer        Rapax                 +21.499s 7.  Mitch Evans          Arden                 +22.584s 8.  Nathanel Berthon     Trident               +36.439s 9.  James Calado         ART                   +38.203s10.  Sam Bird             Russian Time          +44.671s11.  Rio Haryanto         Addax                 +51.951s12.  Daniel de Jong       MP                    +52.520s13.  Alexander Rossi      Caterham              +54.815s14.  Dani Clos            MP                    +55.990s15.  Julian Leal          Racing Engineering    +56.302s16.  Stefano Coletti      Rapax                 +57.202s17.  Vittorio Ghirelli    Lazarus               +58.621s18.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs  Hilmer              +1m05.995s19.  Ricardo Teixeira     Trident             +1m16.133s20.  Tom Dillmann         Russian Time        +1m33.788s21.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Arden                   +1 lap22.  Rene Binder          Lazarus                 +1 lap23.  Jon Lancaster        Hilmer                  +1 lapRetirements:     Daniel Abt           ART                    34 laps     Jake Rosenzweig      Addax                  32 laps     Sergio Canamasas     Caterham               17 laps