Power
moves into second
In
front of stands packed out with more than 100,000 spectators
over the weekend, Will Power (Carlin Motorsport) claimed his
second victory of the season. Thanks to his team's race tactics,
DAMS driver Alx Danielsson took second place, a fraction ahead
of Milos Pavlovic (GD Racing). Eighth, Robert Kubica remains
the clear leader of the World Series.
Will Power took full advantage of his pole position to get
the away quickest at the start, when the safety car moved
over. But the Australian then made a mistake on the very first
chicane. He managed only just to keep his lead
over Milos Pavlovic.
As
early as the end of lap 2, Eric Salignon (Cram Compétition),
Markus Winkelhock (Draco Multiracing USA) and Adrian Valles
(Pons Racing) all decided to come into the pits for their
mandatory stop. Milos Pavlovic followed suit a lap later,
as did Tristan Gommendy (KTR) and Ryan Sharp (Jenzer Motorsport).
While
all of these drivers were waging that the safety car would
be brought out at some point, Will Power just went for it
and built up a big lead over Alx Danielsson, Robert Kubica
(Epsilon Euskadi), Celso Miguez (Pons Racing) and Colin Fleming
(Jenzer Motorsport).
Will
Power came in after six laps, allowing Danielsson to take
up the reigns at the front. The Swedish driver led from Miguez,
Montanari and Porteiro. Power came back out onto the track
in fifth and first among the drivers who had already pitted.
His gamble looked like paying off, as Danielsson was only
13 seconds ahead of the Australian.
Danielsson
came into the pits after eight laps, giving Celso Miguez his
turn to lead the race! The DAMS driver returned to the track
in provisional second place.
Felix
Porteiro, then Celso Miguez and Christian Montanari made their
stops on laps 11 and 12, respectively. Enrico Toccacelo moved
into the lead by just two seconds, ahead of Will Power. Having
to lap carefully on his worn tyres, Toccacelo made several
errors but continued to enjoy the limelight until lap 16.
Power
moved back into the lead, almost 4 seconds ahead of Danielsson,
himself clear of Pavlovic. 4th place, however, was still up
for grabs, Miguez fighting it out with Salignon. Montanari,
who was lying in 12th place, lost control and ended up in
a 360° spin, which allowed Ryan Sharp to gain a place.
As for Robert Kubica, he moved into the top 10 drivers by
overtaking Toccacelo.
Miguez
ran into the back of Salignon on lap 17, but the French driver
managed to stay on the track, dropping back to 5th place:
Colin Fleming took advantage of the incident to get past!
The last few laps were witness to Gommendy spinning his car
and the forced retirements of Damien Pasini and Enrico Tocaccelo.
Will
Power: «This is another very good result for my team.
This win allows me to make up a lot of points on Robert in
the overall standings. Thanks to some great work by the team,
I had a very good car for the race.»
Alx
Danielsson: «This podium finish is a brilliant result
for the whole team, who have had some difficult moments since
the start of the season, with my accident at Zolder and Pastor
being suspended since Monaco. I have had to work very hard
on my own physical fitness to get back to peak form. Today
everything went very well, particularly our pit stop!»
Milos
Pavlovic: «We have been really unlucky all season with
the team. But we have stayed together and have just kept working.
We all went after this podium finish. Our strategy was perhaps
a little bit too cautious, but we now know that we can do
it!»
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