Jolyon Palmer took a huge step towards the 2014 GP2 Series title by scoring victory in the Monza sprint race on Sunday morning.

The win completed an amazing turnaround after being thrown to the back of yesterday’s feature race grid.

DAMS driver Palmer, who stormed to P8 from last on the grid on Saturday, led from start to finish from pole position.

He scored a 1.5s victory over a charging Stefano Coletti, who pulled off some amazing overtaking moves to finish second from ninth on the grid during a stellar drive in his Racing Engineering car.

Palmer’s main title rival Felipe Nasr (Carlin) made a terrible start from P3 on the grid, and only recovered to finish seventh. Palmer is now 43 points clear of Nasr with four races remaining.

Palmer’s team-mate Stephane Richelmi finished third, having no answer for the charging Coletti at Rettifilo with 11 laps to go.

MP Motorsport’s Marco Sorensen finished fourth, having attempted to pass Palmer at Roggia on the opening lap but locked-up and was forced to straightline the chicane.

Arden’s Andre Negrao finished a distant fifth, surviving a late-race clash with Mitch Evans, who was forced out with right-front suspension damage after their collision at Rettifilo after Evans tried to overtake around the outside.

That promoted Jon Lancaster to sixth, although he was investigated for passing Arthur Pic over the white line on the start/finish straight.

Pic scored the final point in eighth, after dropping behind Nasr after bouncing all over the kerbs at Roggia.

Yesterday’s winner Stoffel Vandoorne stalled at the start and could only finish 14th.

Sergio Canamasas was black-flagged after being involved in a series of collisions, the first with Adrian Quaife-Hobbs at Ascari on the opening lap that inadvertently led to Pierre Gasly colliding with Artem Marklov at almost 200mph on the back straight.

That caused a lengthy safety car while their cars were cleared and the track was cleaned.

Championship standings

Palmer wins GP2 Sprint as Evans retires with steering damage