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Doornbos wins first Nurburgring race

Robert Doornbos won the opening Superleague Formula race for AC Milan at the Nurburgring today, despite early pressure from Antonio Pizzonia

But Pizzonia's strong initial pace faded and the Brazilian slipped into the clutches of Craig Dolby, allowing Doornbos to move away to a comfortable victory.

"That was fun," said Doornbos. "I was a bit worried when I locked up a wheel going into turn one at the start. The car was tricky on cold tyres, but when everything warmed up I could pull away from Antonio.

"I'm happy I stayed late last night making practise pitstops, it was worth it as everything went smoothly, even if I now have a cold."

Anderlecht's dark horse, Dolby, had moved up from his fifth place starting position thanks to a bold manoeuvre around the outside of turn one.

The Superleague Formula featured pitstops for the first occasion at the Nurburgring and, with no obvious route past Pizzonia, Dolby's Astromega crew called him into the pits a lap earlier than scheduled.

On new tyres, Dolby lapped a second quicker than Pizzonia and appeared on course to claim second position when the stops eventually played out. Pizzonia did not take fresh rubber until lap 15 and the Corinthians driver suffered the set back of a 28-second stop after stalling.

Instead, it was left to Alessandro Pier Guidi to finish third. Fourth fell to James Walker in an excellent debut in the Alan Docking-run Glasgow Rangers car. Walker was forced to go on the attack in the race in order to recover from a troubled qualifying where Enrico Toccacelo's AS Roma car had spun in front of him, contributing to a lowly 12th place grid slot.

A tense battle for fifth was disputed between Donington winners Davide Rigon and Borja Garcia and they were joined in the final laps by a recovering Pizzonia.

Sevilla's Garcia had worked wonders from the last row on the grid, his poor position caused by an engine failure before qualifying, but had to settle for sixth, just half a second adrift of Rigon at the flag.

Toccacelo will start from pole-position for this afternoon's second race, with Flamengo's Tuka Rocha joining the 30-year-old on the front row of the completely reversed grid.

Pos Driver                  Team                        Gap   
 1. Robert Doornbos         AC Milan              46:13.313
 2. Craig Dolby             Anderlecht               +6.631
 3. Alessandro Pier Guidi   Galatasaray             +19.978
 4. James Walker            Rangers                 +23.002
 5. Davide Rigon            Beijing Guoan           +29.603
 6. Borja Garcia            Sevilla FC              +30.140
 7. Antonio Pizzonia        Corinthians             +34.028
 8. Tristan Gommendy        FC Porto                +42.546
 9. Max Wissel              FC Basel                +43.436
10. Yelmer Buurman          PSV Eindhoven           +53.033
11. Andi Zuber              Al Ain                  +53.541

Retirements

    Kasper Andersen         Olympiacos              20 laps
    Duncan Tappy            Tottenham Hotspur       18 laps
    Adrian Valles           Liverpool                7 laps
    Nelson Philippe         Borussia Dortmund        3 laps
    Tuka Rocha              Flamengo                 0 laps
    Enrico Toccacelo        AS Roma                  0 laps
    Andy Soucek             Atletico Madrid          0 laps


Fastest lap, Buurman 1:43.890 on lap 14

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