Chandhok overturns Sunday luck for German win.

Karun Chandhok finally enjoyed some good fortune in a GP2 Series sprint race in 2008, overcoming the early loss of his pole position to claim a second career win.

The Indian appeared to make a decent getaway from the front of the grid, despite wheelspin, but pressure from second place starter Andy Soucek distracted him enough to allow Lucas di Grassi to sweep around the outside and into the lead at turn one.

Further back, a brief moment of chaos ensued as Luca Filippi attempted to replicate the Brazilian's move, but failed to leave Michael Herck enough room, taking both out on the start-finish straight. Any thought of the safety car was quickly dismissed, however, allowing the racing to continue. Soucek ran third behind di Grassi and Chandhok, with Pastor Maldonado, Giorgio Pantano and Andi Zuber - up from eleventh, filling the early points positions.

Hockenheim's hairpin continued to provide both overtaking opportunities and the possibility for mayhem, and so it proved throughout the opening laps, with places changing hands with regularity. Approaching the corner third time around, however, Chandhok got the chance he was looking for, having closed on di Grassi on the curving run from turn three. Matching the Brazilian through the corner, he was able to out-drag the Campos car down the straight to the Mercedes complex.

Behind the top two, however, the order changed with greater effect, as Soucek left enough of a gap to tempt Pantano - who had passed Alvaro Parente, Romain Grosjean and Bruno Senna off the line, and Maldonado after that - into taking a look. Sadly for the points leader, the opening did not last and the two cars came together, breaking Pantano's steering and forcing Soucek to limp back to pits.

That allowed Maldonado, Parente and Senna to make further inroads into the points, with Grosjean next in line should there be any more mishaps.

At the front, meanwhile, Chandhok was wasting no time in making the most of his lead, while di Grassi, appearing troubled by his brakes, fell into the clutches of Zuber. Twice the pair swapped positions before the Austrian finally a move stick, while Senna began his move towards the sharp end by disposing of Parente at the hairpin.

Fifth would become third for the iSport driver not long after, as Maldonado proved less adept at dealing with di Grassi than Piquet Sports team-mate Zuber had. Although di Grassi may have braked earlier than the Venezuelan had been expecting approaching the hairpin on lap eight, Maldonado appeared not to brake at all as he slammed into the back of the Campos machine, damaging its rear end before sending it into the run-off area. The incident ruined di Grassi's 100 per cent scoring record since returning to the category, while Maldonado made it back to the pits for a new nose, but possible sanction after another apparently avoidable incident.

Grosjean and Javi Villa were promoted to scoring positions by the clash, and the Frenchman - phlegmatic after losing his win on Saturday - made short work of Parente to move up to fourth. Villa, too, passed the Portuguese driver but, with the field now becoming spread out, was too far from Grosjean to contemplate challenging for fourth. With Ho-Pin Tung similarly removed from the rear of Parente, the points were pretty much set once Zuber, after a few laps of pressure, fell away from Chandhok.

That left the excitement to come from outside the top six, where Sebastien Buemi pulled off a well-planned three-corner move on Mike Conway for ninth, and Kamui Kobayashi set about recovering from both the back of the grid and a mid-race clash with Diego Nunes in front of the Mercedes faithful to climb high enough to qualify for the fastest lap bonus.

The DAMS driver had made rapid progress from 23rd on the grid and appeared to get away with the contact to climb to the fringe of the top ten with four laps to go. Chasing down the second Campos car of Vitaly Petrov, he did not have to wait long to get his reward, as the Russian ran wide in turn one, and fell into the clutches of the second DAMS car of Jerome d'Ambrosio.

Chandhok duly reeled off the laps to claim not only his first win of 2008, but also his first points on a Sunday, having endured too many mixed bag weekends so far. Zuber had Senna looming ever larger in his mirrors, but also overcame his own run of misfortune to take second. Senna's third place closed the gap on Pantano at the head of the championship after the Italian had extended his advantage with victory on Saturday, but still heads to Hungary staring at a 15-point margin.