The cars had barely finished forming up for the second time when pole-sitter Sam Bird waved his arms in the air, forcing him to join Valsecchi and fellow grid-staller Adrian Zaugg of Trident in starting from the pit exit.

He tagged Racing Engineering's Dani Clos, who was able to continue, but was then flicked around and was hit head-on by DAMS' Ho-Pin Tung, who in turn was rear-ended by Arden's Rodolfo González.

Vietoris had to work hard for second, the German spending virtually the entire race under pressure from Addax's Sergio Pérez, with Turvey also joining the fight in the final laps.

Pérez's team-mate Giedo van der Garde took fifth ahead of DAMS's Jérôme d'Ambrosio, the Belgian back in the car after missing the Hockenheim round, while DPR locked out the front row for the sprint race with Michael Herck and Giacomo Ricci taking seventh and eighth respectively.

That opened the door for Racing Engineering's Christian Vietoris to claim second place, the German having done a great job after starting from seventh on the grid, while iSport's Davide Valsecchi made a nice move down the inside of Giedo van der Garde (Addax) to secure third with three laps to go.