Up front, Rodriguez took his first look at the lead entering lap seven, allowing Villa and Carroll to regain touch with the top two, while di Grassi, Zuber and Glock all made quick progress to close the gap that had opened between themselves and the Briton. Matters came to a head when Rodriguez sensed the slimmest of gaps into turn two on lap ten. Zaugg clearly didn't think that the Spaniard would try to squeeze through, but was caught out when he attempted to take his line for the corner, being forced wide as the two cars tangled wheels. Rodriguez survived to rejoin in third, but the South African was less fortunate, dropping to sixth and definitely not happy with the handling of his Arden car as Glock swept by.
The confrontation allowed Villa to assume a familiar position at the head of the pack, but with Carroll in close attendance as the Briton sniffed the opportunity of a victory double. Zaugg's race continued to go from bad to worse as
Kazuki Nakajima decided that the South African was a sitting target, taking several looks at seventh before the pair also made contact.
Again, the Arden machine came off worst, dropping out of the event, while Nakajima dropped to tenth - back into a battle with Pantano that had been interrupted by a touch between the two several laps earlier. The Japanese driver was then slapped with a drive-thru penalty for his over-exuberance, but the punishment meant little as the DAMS machine was retired shortly afterwards with front suspension damage.
The top six had remained unchanged while the shenanigans were going on behind, but Zuber decided to shake things up by spinning under braking while running between di Grassi and Glock. That allowed the two championship protagonists to come together on track, and it was clear that the German had the performance advantage, even if he could not make it count on the tight Hungaroring layout.
