GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne claimed a record-breaking feature race win, bringing his tally of victories up to eleven, which makes him the driver with the most GP2 race wins. Raffaele Marciello recovered from a bad start and finished in second place with an opposite strategy ahead of Mitch Evans.
Vandoorne had a quick getaway from the front row and attacked pole sitter Pierre Gasly, but Gasly kept the upper hand and remained in the lead. However, Vandoorne made the move stick in lap four, dashing past his rival behind the DRS detection point so that the Frenchman had no chance to use it and reclaim the lead. Soon afterwards, the Frenchman fell victim to a charging Mitch Evans as well and tumbled down the order with rapidly degrading supersoft tyres.
Behind the leading trio, Raffaele Marciello had recovered from a slow start, and was eventually able to move up to third place. This allowed him to inherit the race lead as Vandoorne and Evans, who had started on the supersoft compound, dashed into the pits in lap six.
A virtual safety car phase interrupted the race after Norman Nato and Nicolas Latifi came together, and eventually the order settled down as follows: Marciello led from Artem Markelov and Jordan King, while Vandoorne in 14th place ahead of Evans and Gasly tried to make up as much ground to the leading Italian as possible without over-using the Pirelli rubber.
Tyre conservation was the order of the day during most of the race, and all eyes were on the gap between Marciello and Vandoorne. Around the halfway mark of the race the GP2 champion began to speed up and slowly closed the gap to the race leader second by second. Marciello pitted for his new supersofts in lap 26, and by then Vandoorne had had enough of an advantage to remain unchallenged until the checkered flag. Marciello finished the race ahead of Mitch Evans, who defended well against a charging Alexander Rossi. Gasly finished in fifth place despite a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Jordan King and Rio Haryanto fought over sixth place until the finish line, where the Brit was one step ahead. Alex Lynn claimed the reverse grid pole position for tomorrow sprint race. Andre Negrao and Nathanael Berthon complete the top ten.
