Danielsson reigns supreme

Starting from pole position, Alx Danielsson (Comtec Racing) did not give his rivals the slightest chance in the first race of the weekend. The Swede made the victory his own at the end of an impressive solo effort. Andy Soucek (Interwetten.com) finished in second to reclaim the championship lead from Borja Garcia (RC Motorsport), who abandoned the race. Alvaro Parente (Victory Engineering) put an end to his run of bad luck to make it back onto the podium.

Alx Danielsson got off to a dream start from pole position. Borja Garcia tried to attack Alvaro Parente on the brakes into the opening bend, but he was forced to slot back into fourth behind Soucek. Further back, Ben Hanley (Cram Competition) took a detour via the gravel trap and Alvaro Barba (Jenzer Motorsport) abandoned the race. Ryo Fukuda (Tech 1 Racing) also only managed to crawl back into the pits to abandon.

Danielsson completed the first lap in the lead, ahead of Soucek, Parente, Pavlovic, Garcia, Perrera, McIntosh, Montanari and Aleshin, who was soon to be passed by his teammate Zaugg.

Zaugg continued his comeback to take eighth place away from Montanari (lap four). In the main field, Pastor Maldonado was also on a comeback after starting from the second-from-last row of the grid: he had made it into sixteenth with five laps gone. Tristan Gommendy (Pons Racing), who'd been lapping in the midst of the field, then came into the pits.

While Danielsson, Soucek and Parente may each have opened a significant gap over the other, fourth place was still up for grabs. Borja Garcia proved just that when he passed Milos Pavlovic at the start of lap seven. The Yugoslavian then dropped back several more places ending up in tenth. At the end of the straight, he lost control of his car and went into a spin. His car flipped up over Celso Miguez's (Comtec Racing) front wheel and went into a spectacular multiple roll. Fortunately, Milos was able to climb out of the cockpit, shocked but unharmed.

The main point of interest in the closing stages of the race was the duel between Borja Garcia and Franck Perera (Interwetten.com) for fourth place. And it was a story with a twist in the tail as Borja Garcia ended up abandoning due to a mechanical problem!

This allowed Franck Perera to move up a place and bag some precious points for Interwetten.com, who thus take a major step towards securing the Team title! In the drivers standings, the situation is even closer than ever with Soucek back on top (101 pts) ahead of Danielsson (98 pts) and Garcia (97 pts). By finishing eleventh, Maldonado (85 pts) remains in with a slim chance of the title, as does Parente (81 pts).

Alx Danielsson: "It's superb! If someone would have told me after Spa that I would be in with a shout for the title in the last race of the season, I would never have believed it. But we've put together a good series of results thanks to some impeccable work by the team, which has given me a car which is both fast and easy to drive."

Andy Soucek: "Alx drove a perfect race here today. I couldn't hope for anything better than second. All the same, I attacked just as hard as I could! I have reclaimed the lead in the Championship, but above all I'm focussed on winning on the track. It's only my first season at this level, I'm still young and I have high hopes for the future."

Alvaro Parente: "I didn't get off to a good start and the race wasn't easy in general. I had to fight to hold onto third. It's good to be back on the podium after being out of the points in the last five races."

-credit: renault