Soucek seals title as Vasiliauskas wins

Vasiliauskas controlled the race perfectly from pole position - following a brief scare at Tamburello on the first lap when he nearly threw it away - and sprinted well clear of his rivals.

An early safety car period, prompted by Tobias Hegewald flipping his car at the first chicane, couldn't contain the Lithuanian for long and he was soon off into the distance after the restart.

"I'm really proud," said the first Lithuanian driver to win a major international race. "From the beginning to the end I could drive the same times. The track was nice, the car was good, I really enjoyed the race and I set my fastest lap on the last one."

Soucek, meanwhile, made a great start to climb from sixth to fourth while his main rival, Mikhail Aleshin, had a shocker and went the other way from third to sixth.

That meant the Spaniard only had to stay ahead of Aleshin to clinch the crown - a task made significantly easier when Aleshin spun out of sixth place at Tamburello on lap 13 and dropped to eighth. He later regained seventh from German Sanchez, but he couldn't stop Soucek sealing the title.

With the championship all but in the bag, Soucek even began to press on harder in the closing stages of the race, taking third place from Robert Wickens - to ensure he would take the title on the podium - and even pushing Mirko Bortolotti all the way to the flag for second.

"There was a mess at the first corner so I had to try to eacape without risking too much," Soucek explained. "I overtook [Philipp] Eng around the outside, which was a pretty difficult move, then it was all about the rhythm.

"I think that was maybe my best race so far, even though the wins are more enjoyable. I wanted to win [the title] with a victory, I couldn't, but I am happy to win with a podium."

Wickens finished fourth ahead of Eng, who was unable to progress further despite heaping pressure on Soucek at mid-distance.

Milos Pavlovic had a quiet race to sixth after a flying start from 14th on the grid. Aleshin recovered to seventh, with Sanchez holding off Sebastian Hohenthal and Julien Jousse - who had charged back through the field after dropping to the back in the midst of the first-lap mayhem - to claim the final point in eighth.

Pos  Driver                  Time/Gap
 1.  Kazim Vasiliauskas    38m03.024s
 2.  Mirko Bortolotti        + 7.503s
 3.  Andy Soucek             + 8.178s
 4.  Robert Wickens          + 8.999s
 5.  Philipp Eng             + 9.526s
 6.  Milos Pavlovic         + 11.940s
 7.  Mikhail Aleshin        + 18.292s
 8.  German Sanchez         + 22.781s
 9.  Sebastian Hohenthal    + 23.582s
10.  Julien Jousse          + 23.875s
11.  Henri Karjalainen      + 28.343s
12.  Jolyon Palmer          + 34.577s
13.  Edoardo Piscopo        + 34.711s
14.  Jack Clarke            + 37.643s
15.  Natacha Gachnang       + 38.316s
16.  Tom Gladdis            + 40.480s
17.  Alex Brundle         + 1m20.097s
18.  Jason Moore          + 1m28.959s

Retirements:

    Carlos Iaconelli     4 laps
    Jens Hoing           4 laps
    Armaan Ebrahim       3 laps
    Nicola de Marco      0 laps
    Tobias Hegewald      0 laps
    Ollie Hancock        0 laps
    Pietro Gandolfi      0 laps