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Hamilton Roars to Victory in Pau

Lewis Hamilton roared on Saturday to an easy victory in Race One of this weekend's Euro Series Formula Three round at Pau in France, after two of his closest rivals ended their afternoon with severely damaged machinery

Hamilton got away cleanly at the start from pole position, but it all went wrong for fellow front-row starter Adrian Sutil, who got badly bogged down.

As the field roared towards the first corner, the slow Sutil was swallowed up by his rivals and came off worst when Esteban Guerrieri clattered into him and pushed him into the barriers as he tried to get past.

With Sutil out on the spot, before getting craned away while still in the car, the way was left open for third placed qualifier Franck Perera to grab second spot, ahead of Loic Duval and James Rossiter, who had got briefly held up by Sutil's slow car.

Hamilton was unaffected at the front as he steadily extended his advantage and pushed hard until the closing stages of the race to grab a dominant victory.

""It was a great race for me," said the Briton. "I knew I had to get into the first corner in the lead. I had a big margin at the end of the first couple of laps but you can make a mistake so easily here and I just had to keep concentrating."

Behind the runaway leader there was plenty to play for as Duval put Perera under severe pressure - and eventually forced the Frenchman into a mistake on lap four, when he ran wide at the exit of Foch.

Duval duly took the second spot but realised pretty quickly that there was little point in trying to chase down Hamilton. "There was a gap to Lewis and it wasn't possible for me to make it up," he said. "So I stayed there and just looked in my mirrors."

Rossiter finished third, just 1.5 seconds behind Duval, while Guillaume Moreau took fourth place after Paul di Resta spun out of that position after missing a downshift at the final corner - just when he seemed to have secured the spot.

Hamilton will obviously start Sunday's race favourite, but he knows that nothing is guaranteed. "Two pole positions and a win is great, but we have got to go out and do the same thing tomorrow," he said.

Classified:

Pos  Driver               Chassis-Engine              Time
 1.  Hamilton Lewis       Dallara F305  Mercedes      30:26.815
 2.  Duval Loïc           Dallara F305  Opel          +   9.390
 3.  Rossiter James       Dallara F305  Opel          +  10.952
 4.  Moreau Guillaume     Dallara F305  Opel          +  33.420
 5.  Di Grassi Lucas      Dallara F305  Mercedes      +  37.205
 6.  Van Der Garde Giedo  Dallara F305  Opel          +  38.646
 7.  Vettel Sebastian     Dallara F305  Mercedes      +  38.819
 8.  Antinucci Richard    Dallara F305  Tom's Toyota  +  41.556
 9.  Nunez Alejandro      Dallara F305  Opel          +  48.073
10.  Hirate Kohei         Dallara F305  Opel          +  50.254
11.  Abreu Atila          Dallara F305  Mercedes      +  53.543
12.  Neuhauser Hannes     Dallara F305  Mercedes      +  54.182
13.  Zwolsman Ross        Dallara F305  Opel          +  55.606
14.  Di Resta Paul        Dallara F305  Mercedes      +  57.711
15.  Franchi Greg         Dallara F305  Opel          +1:10.570
16.  Carbone Fabio        S L C R 1     Opel          +  1 Laps
17.  Salaquarda Filip     Dallara F305  Opel          +  1 Laps
18.  Holzer Thomas        Dallara F 305 Opel          +  1 Laps
19.  Guerrieri Esteban    Dallara F305  Tom's Toyota  +  3 Laps

Retirements/Not Classified:

     Driver               Chassis-Engine         On Lap
     Bonanomi Marco       Dallara F305  Opel       7
     Perera Franck        Dallara F305  Opel       4
     Gotz Maximilian      Dallara F305  Opel       4
     Sutil Adrian         Dallara F305  Mercedes   1

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