The race was suspended for around 25 minutes, in which time the conditions fluctuated enough to cause a little thinking up and down the grid. Most, however, plumped for wets ahead of the restart, with only a handful of optimistic souls towards the rear hoping that slicks were the way to go.
The order, however, had undergone something of a reshuffle, with Valles leading Buemi, Sentul sprint winner Fairuz Fauzy, Davide Valsecchi, Petrov, Harald Schlegelmilch, Milos Pavlovic and Jerome d'Ambrosio in the points positions, and Senna, Chandhok and Grosjean occupying twelfth, 14th and 17th as the safety car rolled off the line.
Despite the treacherous surface, all made it through the opening corner although, as usual, there were those caught napping at the restart, creating gaps between groups of cars. Valles, however, made no mistake, immediately pulling out a gap over Buemi, with Fauzy, Valsecchi and co dropping away all around the first lap back at speed.
It didn't take long for the casualties to start falling again, with Stephen Jelley throwing away eleventh spot at the final hairpin and Senna joining him on the sidelines at turn one after locking his rears and spinning to a halt. The Brazilian had just set the fastest lap of the race to that point, going three seconds faster than anyone else, but would go no further.
Grosjean, meanwhile, had started to make progress in his attempt to limit the damage to his points advantage, and would continue to pass lesser mortals at a steady rate. Up to eleventh by lap ten - the race having restarted on lap four - the Frenchman picked off both Armaan Ebrahim and d'Ambrosio next time around, while Pavlovic handed him another spot by running wide shortly afterwards. Schlegelmilch lasted four laps longer, and Valsecchi another couple after that, allowing Grosjean to close on the back of the battle for third involving Fauzy, Tung and Petrov, where the charge was slowed.