Coletti wins wet-dry GP2 thriller

Stefano Coletti won a thrilling GP2 sprint race at Hockenheim, as a slick-tire gamble on the grid paid off for the Racing Engineering driver's first win in over a year.

Heavy rain fell 10 minutes before the start of the race, and although the track was soaked a number of drivers made the brave call to start on slick tires, including frontrunners Felipe Nasr (fourth on the grid) and Coletti (fifth). The majority started on wets.

The slick starters tumbled down the order immediately, as poleman Nathanael Berthon led from a fast-starting Mitch Evans (up from eighth) and Marco Sorensen.

Coletti was the first of the slick-shod cars in 13th when the safety car was required to retrieve Stephane Richelmi's DAMS car, which had caught fire after a clash with Johnny Cecotto Jr. at Turn 1.

At the restart, Berthon fell backwards quickly, with Saturday's winner Evans briefly leading until he ran wide at Turn 1 and allowed Stoffel Vandoorne to hit the front. Evans then tumbled backward, as Sorensen came up to second.

By lap 10, Coletti started setting purple sector times as the crossover period arrived. Jolyon Palmer was the first frontrunner to pit, when running fourth. Coletti had been over 45 seconds off leader Vandoorne, but quickly made big gains at this point.

Vandoorne's decision about when to pit was made for him when a safety car was required to recover Arthur Pic's spun car, so all the leaders pitted for slicks. Coletti grabbed the lead as Vandoorne pitted, the Belgian rejoining ahead of Nasr and Sorensen.

When the race resumed, Nasr passed Vandoorne for second after a huge scrap and chased after Coletti. He got the gap down to a second, but Coletti had pace to spare and won through by 1.2sec, taking fastest lap on the final tour.

"It feels great," said Coletti. "We saw two years ago it dries really quickly here, but it was very difficult at the beginning."

Vandoorne finished third, ahead of Sorensen, an impressive Jon Lancaster, Palmer, Alexander Rossi (who also started on slicks) and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs.

Hard luck stories included Coletti's teammate Raffaele Marciello, whose car stuck in sixth gear just as he was challenging Sorensen, causing him to go off. Evans finished 11th.