Monaco GP2: Matsushita claims ART's first win of 2016

The Japanese driver, whose maiden win had come from pole in the Hungaroring sprint last year, again led from start to finish for a comfortable victory.

Matsushita's getaway off the line was a bit delayed, allowing Marvin Kirchhofer to draw alongside him into Ste Devote - but the Japanese driver held the inside line to exit the corner in first place.

And in virtually no time he was well up the road, the gap between Matsushita and Kirchhofer growing to three seconds during the opening laps.

With the race settling into a rhythm out front, there was a brief yellow flag disruption as Jordan King forced Philo Paz Armand into the wall at Hotel Hairpin.

Armand's stricken car was removed without the need for VSC, but one was called in shortly thereafter to recover the Dallara GP2/11 of the field's other Indonesian - Sean Gelael, who crashed at Ste Devote.

Kirchhofer gained a second back on Matsushita as the VSC was lifted, but the Honda protege picked up where he left off, taking the gap to six seconds by the halfway point.

It would grow further and further from there, Kirchhofer instead having to focus on keeping third-placed Raffaele Marciello at bay.

Having put in the fastest lap of the race for the two bonus points on lap 28, Matsushita took the chequered flag first two laps later, 13.6s in the clear.

In second, rookie Kirchhofer picked up Carlin's first GP2 podium since Felipe Nasr's runner-up finish in the 2014 GP2 finale in Abu Dhabi.

It was third place for Marciello, his first podium with Russian Time, with former RT driver Mitch Evans in fourth.

Alex Lynn held on to fifth despite struggling for pace for much of the race, with Norman Nato just four tenths off - the Frenchman taking the championship lead.

Oliver Rowland and Friday's shock winner Artem Markelov completed the points, with Arthur Pic in ninth and Sergio Canamasas in 10th, having pulled off overtaking moves on Pierre Gasly, Gustav Malja and Daniel de Jong.

Joining Gelael and Armand among the retirements were Matsushita's teammate Sergey Sirotkin, whose car crawled to a halt one-third into the race, and Nicholas Latifi, who called it a day in the pits.

Race results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	41:59.392
2	Marvin Kirchhofer	Carlin	13.660
3	Raffaele Marciello	Russian Time	15.453
4	Mitch Evans	Pertamina Campos Racing	20.894
5	Alex Lynn	DAMS	32.560
6	Norman Nato	Racing Engineering	33.038
7	Oliver Rowland	MP Motorsport	33.594
8	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	33.874
9	Arthur Pic	Rapax	36.777
10	Sergio Canamasas	Carlin	47.646
11	Daniel de Jong	MP Motorsport	54.291
12	Gustav Malja	Rapax	55.476
13	Pierre Gasly	Prema Powerteam	55.981
14	Luca Ghiotto	Trident	56.501
15	Jimmy Eriksson	Arden International	58.682
16	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1:09.193
17	Nabil Jeffri	Arden International	1:17.922
18	Antonio Giovinazzi	Prema Powerteam	1:17.997
Ret	Philo Paz Armand	Trident
Ret	Sergey Sirotkin	ART Grand Prix
Ret	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS
Ret	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Campos Racing