Perez sprints to victory

Sergio Perez has followed up yesterday’s second place finish with a dominant win in this morning’s sprint race event in Hockenheim, storming through the field to claim an easy win over Oliver Turvey and Adrian Zaugg.

The Mexican held fire while the order sorted itself out in front of him at the start: poleman Turvey was slow off the line with Zaugg taking the lead into turn one and holding back a fast charging Marcus Ericsson, with the Briton robustly reclaiming second place at the hairpin and the lead at the same spot on lap later.

Behind the lead pair Ericsson was soon in trouble, losing out to Jules Bianchi at the hairpin and coming into the pits shortly after for his team to take a look at his damaged car.

Behind the Frenchman Dani Clos was holding back Pastor Maldonado and Perez, but the championship leader was easy pickings for the unstoppable Mexican, who also made short work of passing Clos and Bianchi in successive laps.

Perez dispatched Zaugg on lap 9, and Turvey for the lead 4 laps later, before putting together a string of fastest laps as he disappeared from view.

But the action was further back with Sam Bird squeezing Charles Pic for sixth place as he looked to make amends for a disappointing qualifying, while Romain Grosjean was also slicing through the field: it all came to a head on lap 23 when Bird pushed through Clos at the hairpin, with Grosjean braking late and tapping the Briton and handing the inside line to Maldonado, who touched wheels with the Frenchman: both men were out on the spot.

At the chequered flag it was Perez who finished six seconds ahead of Turvey, who had a two second break over Zaugg: Bianchi held on to fourth just ahead of teammate Bird, with Clos claiming sixth place 0.3 seconds ahead of Luca Filippi.

The Mexican’s third win of the season sees Perez return to second in the championship on 45 points, 21 behind Maldonado and 2 ahead of Clos, with Bianchi holding on for fourth with 39 points ahead of next week’s round in Budapest.