Stoffel Vandoorne took his third win of the season in the GP2 Feature Race at Monza

Stoffel Vandoorne converted pole position into his third victory of the season, but the star of the show at Monza was Jolyon Palmer who charged from last to eighth.

Having been excluded from qualifying and thus starting 19 positions behind championship rival Felipe Nasr, the weekend could have put a serious dent in Palmer's title ambitions. 

Instead the Briton limited the damage to just two points after charging through the pack and picking up the two bonus points for fastest lap whilst Nasr only moved up one spot during the race to sixth.

Eighth spot for Palmer also hands him reverse grid pole for Sunday morning’s Sprint Race and should he go on to win the title, his recovery drive at Monza may go down as a pivotal point.

For Vandoorne the controlled drive to victory will have impressed his on-looking McLaren bosses on a weekend when they stressed that they hadn’t made any decisions on their 2015 F1 drivers.

The Belgian quickly established a gap to Arthur Pic on the opening lap, thanks in part to his higher downforce levels through the middle sector, and looked comfortable throughout.

“It was a good day, pole position yesterday, a clean start today and I managed to pull a little gap to Arthur behind and then the team performed a very good pit-stop and I came out in the lead again,” Vandoorne said after the race.

“Then we had to push until the end as Arthur was really quick behind and didn’t give me much breathing space, but finally we managed another Feature Race victory so thanks to the team for a great job.”

Pic threatened a late lunge into Turn One in the closing laps, but could never get close enough despite his lower drag levels along the long pit-straight and had to settle for second spot, with Mitch Evans a distant third. The New Zealander's strategy was compromised, however, when his radio failed, leading to him staying out longer than he planned.

Live GP2 Racing

Driving standards have been reasonably high throughout the 2014 season, but those levels slipped slightly during the 30 laps at Monza with a number of silly moves.

On the second lap Kimiya Sato lunged into the first corner from a long way back, carrying too much speed and made contact with Daniel de Jong.

As the field scrambled to avoid that incident, Rene Binder then tagged Takuya Izawa who spun across the apex of the second turn which forced Raffaele Marciello off the track and into the gravel. The Ferrari protégé would beach his Racing Engineering car and retire from what had been a disappointing start to the race having dropped from fourth to 19th on the opening lap.

Daniel Abt had been the first man to make his mandatory pit-stop and after pushing hard early on his new rubber was struggling for pace by lap 19 causing a bunching of the cars behind him. Andre Negrao dived past the Hilmer driver at the first Lesmo, a move which Julian Leal clumsily attempted to repeat at the second Lesmo. The Brazilian squeezed the German in the braking zone, firing him into the barrier and the Carlin driver was justly handed a drive-through penalty.

The Sprint Race from Monza is live on Sky Sports F1 and you can see all the action from 9:30am on Sunday. 

GP2 Italy – Feature Race
1) Stoffel Vandoorne (BEL) – ART Grand Prix – 48:02.203
2) Arthur Pic (FRA) – Campos Racing - +0.673
3) Mitch Evans (NZL) – Russian Time - +4.102
4) Stephane Richelmi (MON) – DAMS - +9.502
5) Andre Negrao (BRA) – Arden International - +11.140
6) Felipe Nasr (BRA) – Carlin - +11.605
7) Marco Sorensen (DEN) – MP Motorsport - +14.458
8) Jolyon Palmer (GBR) – DAMS - +15.049
9) Stefano Coletti (MON) – Racing Engineering - +16.704
10) Johnny Cecotto (VEN) – Trident - +17.164

Selected others
11) Adrian Quaife-Hobbs (GBR) – Rapax - +25.885
12) Jo Lancaster (GBR) – Hilmer Motorsport - +29.125

Drivers’ Championship
1) Jolyon Palmer – 216
2) Felipe Nasr – 186
3) Stoffel Vandoorne – 164
4) Johnny Cecotto – 128
5) Mitch Evans – 125