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Vergne fends off Huertas in race one

Championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne just held off Colombian racer Carlos Huertas to win a thrilling British Formula 3 race at Rockingham this afternoon

The French Carlin driver started third but led by the time the cars emerged from the Deene hairpin for the first time. He took advantage of a sluggish getaway from poleman Oli Webb (Fortec) to jump into second, and when front row starter Huertas left the door open on the run down to Deene, Vergne dived down the inside on the brakes and took the lead.

Vergne's Dallara-Volkswagen looked particularly rapid in the early stages of the race and he led Huertas by 1.5 seconds after four laps as Webb struggled to keep pace.

The impetus see-sawed between the first two for another half a dozen laps until Huertas found his groove and began chipping away at Vergne's advantage. Huertas' Raikkonen Robertson Dallara-Mercedes made large gains under braking and through the slower sections of the track, and the Colombian relentlessly hunted down his rival.

He got a couple of good runs coming into Deene in the closing stages, but Vergne defended the inside line expertly and held on to win by just two tenths of a second.

The chequered flag appeared to fall with 18s of the race time still to run, potentially denying Huertas a third and final opportunity to wrest the lead from his rival.

"I should have won that race," said a slightly disappointed Huertas. "But second is a good result, good points, and we were the fastest car out there so it's good for tomorrow."

"That was not easy," said race winner Vergne. "He was really fast."

Webb cursed his poor start and fell gradually away from the lead duo and into the clutches of Carlin driver James Calado. The Racing Steps man looked faster than his fellow Briton, but could not get close enough to mount a challenge for the podium.

Northern Irishman Will Buller headed a train of five cars across the line to claim fifth for Hitech Racing. Buller looked to be struggling badly for pace and eventually finished over 15s adrift of Calado, with team-mate Gabriel Dias, Raikkonen Robertson's Felipe Nasr, Fortec's Daniel McKenzie and Carlin's Adriano Buzaid all right behind him.

Seventh was a disappointing result for reigning Formula BMW Europe champion Nasr, who ran fifth early on and threatened to challenge Calado for fourth until dropping back on lap seven.

McKenzie did well to rise to eighth after going off at Deene in qualifying, stalling and then not being allowed to resume after receiving outside assistance to get back to the pits. He started 14th and achieved his pre-race aim of making into the top 10 to try and get a good grid spot for tomorrow morning's reversed grid race.

Raikkonen Robertson's Daisuke Nakajima rounded out the top 10, while T-Sport's Menasheh Idafar just edged team-mate James Cole to take National Class honours in 13th overall.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Car    Time/Gap
 1.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Carlin               D/V  29m38.641s
 2.  Carlos Huertas        Raikkonen Robertson  D/M    + 0.282s
 3.  Oli Webb              Fortec               D/M    + 4.600s
 4.  James Calado          Carlin               D/V    + 5.241s
 5.  William Buller        Hitech               D/V   + 20.595s
 6.  Gabriel Dias          Hitech               D/V   + 21.197s
 7.  Felipe Nasr           Raikkonen Robertson  D/M   + 21.728s
 8.  Daniel McKenzie       Fortec               D/M   + 22.380s
 9.  Adriano Buzaid        Carlin               D/V   + 23.116s
10.  Daisuke Nakajima      Raikkonen Robertson  D/M   + 24.966s
11.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin               D/V   + 35.194s
12.  Lucas Foresti         Carlin               D/V   + 35.574s
13.  Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport              D/H   + 37.075s
14.  James Cole            T-Sport              D/H   + 39.524s
15.  Maxim Snegirev        Fortec               D/M   + 47.359s
16.  Alex Brundle          T-Sport              D/V   + 49.806s
17.  Pietro Fantin         Hitech               D/V   + 53.487s
18.  Adderly Fong          Sino Vision          D/M   + 55.308s

Retirements:

     Jay Bridger           Litespeed            D/M  19 laps
     Hywel Lloyd           CF/Manor             D/M  16 laps
     Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin               D/V  12 laps

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