Prema Powerteam’s Pierre Gasly stormed to his maiden victory in GP2 at the Silverstone feature race, moving his way through the field and hitting the front after an early pitstop.
It was the Frenchman’s first win in a racing series since 2013, when he was competing in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 championship.
Gasly lined up second but was one of the drivers to stop early to switch from the soft to the hard compound Pirelli tyres.
On fresh rubber, he quickly made up ground and stormed into the lead when his rivals pitted to ditch the hard tyre for softs late on.
He went on to finish almost 10 seconds clear of Antonio Giovinazzi, who made it a Prema 1-2 finish after a stunning overtake around the outside of Oliver Rowland on the final lap.
Having been overtaken at Luffield, Rowland had to settle for third place at his home event, with Mitch Evans recovering to fourth after being one of the drivers to pit late on.
Strategy proved to play a big part in the race and Luca Ghiotto, who stopped early on, proved this by rising from 21st and last on the grid to an eventual fifth, losing a few places in the closing stages.
Nobuharu Matsushita was sixth on his GP2 return after his Austria ban, with polesitter Norman Nato falling to seventh when he pitted.
Jordan King was eighth in the second Racing Engineering car, ahead of Raffaele Marciello and Artem Markelov, with the two Russian Time drivers completing the top 10.
Markelov was on a charge in the final stages of the race, completing a staggering stint on the hard tyres before a slow pitstop late on caused him to lose ground.
Nicholas Latifi was 11th after starting at the front of the field, ahead of Marvin Kirchhofer, Sergio Canamasas, Arthur Pic and Jimmy Eriksson.
Sergey Sirotkin missed the qualifying weighbridge and started from the pits, but only recovered to 18th. Sean Gelael and Gustav Malja were both one lap down after colliding on the opening lap.
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