Sergey Sirotkin converted pole position into his maiden GP2 victory in the Silverstone feature race.

The Russian lost the lead at the start when third-placed Richie Stanaway made a lighting getaway to dive between the pole man and second-place starter Stoffel Vandoorne off the line.

The safety car was deployed moments later after Artem Markelov spun and was collected by Nathanael Berthon.

At the restart, Stanaway either tried to back up the field too much or failed to realise that passing is allowed from the safety-car restart line rather than the start/finish line, with Sirotkin getting ahead through Club.

This forced Stanway wide and also allowed Nobuharu Matsushita, who had passed ART Grand Prix team-mate Vandoorne on the run to the first corner after the Belgian lost momentum when he was clipped by Stanaway, to get past into second place.

Sirotkin was never again threatened, initially pulling a small gap over Matsushita before the Japanese retired with a suspected engine problem.

This promoted Stanaway to second, but he soon came under pressure from Alexander Rossi, who had passed Vandoorne coming onto the National Straight on lap 16.

Rossi then overtook Stanaway around the outside at Brooklands, with Vandoorne doing the same shortly afterwards.

By now, the top two were settled as Sirotkin had checked out and Rossi was far enough up the road to ensure he stayed ahead of any of those who had made an early pitstop after starting on the mediums.

Vandoorne was the best-placed of those who ran that strategy, emerging from the pits behind Hilmer Motorsport’s Nick Yelloly and Racing Engineering’s Jordan King.

King put in a superb defensive drive on tyres that were past their best, but could not resist indefinitely and Vandoorne was able to get ahead with six laps to go.

DAMS drivers Pierre Gasly and Alex Lynn then found their way past King late on to secure fourth and fifth places.

King looked set to salvage sixth after repulsing the challenge of Campos Racing’s Arthur Pic, only for the Frenchman to boot him into a spin at the final corner.

The incident is under investigation, meaning that Pic’s sixth place is far from guaranteed.

Trident driver Raffaele Marciello took seventh place ahead of Yelloly, the latter continuing to make good progress after his late start to the season.

That means Yelloly has pole for tomorrow’s sprint race after crossing the line ahead of Oliver Rowland, who performed well on his GP2 debut for MP Motorsport.

Rio Haryanto, twice a race winner in 2015, took 10th place after starting well down the grid thanks to a sensor problem.

Stanaway failed to finish due to a left-rear suspension failure, while Russian Time’s Mitch Evans was again let down by his machinery after the cockpit headrest flew off his car and forced him to retire.

RESULTS – 29 LAPS:

Sirotkin takes maiden GP2 win on tough day for Kiwi drivers