Piccione avoids chaos to win

The Carlin Motorsport driver started third on the grid but lots of standing water on the soaking track caused several cars, including the two ahead of Piccione on the grid, to take to the gravel during a chaotic first two laps.

After that, Piccione kept his head in the tricky drying conditions and led the field home. He even kept his cool when some tardy backmarkers held him up, virtually negating the cushion he had built up, and was delighted with his victory.

"I guess I just felt more comfortable than the others in the conditions," he reckoned. "I knew I had to go for the lead in the first two corners so I could would not have spray in my face. After that, I just had to keep my head down."

He felt that more waving of the blue flags would have helped his course past a pair of squabbling backmarkers late in the race but also admitted he had been very cautious about passing them. "The blue flags were not waved at all in some places, and not enough in others," he explained. "I did not want to risk anything, so I took it really easy."

Nelson Piquet Jr was second, but he did it the hard way. Having started second, he was one of many drivers to slide wide into the gravel on lap two, rejoining in sixth. That meant he had plenty of hard work to do, passing several cars to reach second and he was also coping with a broken gearbox, which lost two gears.

He had some good fortune though - Alan Docking Racing driver Will Power removed himself from Piquet's path by running wide at McLeans on lap 11, and Menu Motorsport's Will Davison believed he had secured second and taken the chequered flag before letting Piquet through.

Only then did his pit crew realise they had miscounted the number of laps remaining and put out a faulty pit board, and by then it was too late. The Brazilian was through, although he too admitted he was unsure as to whether the race had finished yet at the time.

Once he realised it hadn't, he pushed hard, and proved his pace in the drying conditions by setting fastest lap on the final tour.

Davison's drive was a much-needed boost for the Australian after a disappointing qualifying and first race. He started 12th but the havoc of the opening lap promoted him to fifth and he was second after two laps, when the safety car came out for a three-lap period.

"After qualifying and the first race, I was pretty disappointed, and just wanting get to Silverstone," said Davison. "But we've come away with a podium, so I'm pretty pleased with that."

Power, whose run through the gravel dumped him from third (and on Davison's tail) to a distant fifth, went on a charge after that eventually clawed his way back up to fourth, passing Ernesto Viso's P1 Motorsport car on the penultimate lap. Venezuelan Viso was struggling with a car that he had not had time to set up properly for the wet, and was oversteering wildly but he still scored fifth.

Hitech Racing driver Andrew Thompson completed a solid weekend's work with his second sixth place of the day. He too ran wide in the wet, at Old Hairpin on lap seven, falling to eighth. But his car was set up better set-up than team-mate Marko Asmer's and he overhauled the Estonian with five laps to go.

First-race winner Adam Carroll lasted less than a lap before sliding off at speed and thumping the barrier at the top of the Craner Curves, before being collected heavily by Adam Langley-Khan, who had gone off at exactly the same place. The single Lola-Dome of Danny Watts didn't even start, having been too badly damaged in race one.

Ryan Lewis completed a Scholarship class double, despite also being caught out by the weather. He started from pole, but took a dive down the inside at Redgate on the opening lap in an attempt to get out of the spray. It didn't work, and he lost out to Stephen Jelley.

A spin at the exit of Coppice on lap 14 hindered him further, but Lewis overhauled a 10-second deficit to Jelley thanks to his rival's own problems. Jelley had spun on the green flag lap, and the tow line which pulled him out of the gravel was attached to his rear wing, pulling it out of line.

That adversely affected his downforce and he was unable to hold back the charging Lewis late in the race.


Clivio Piccione Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 31m34.165s
Nelson Piquet Jr Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 31m37.087s
Will Davison Dallara F304 Opel-Speiss 31m39.019s
Will Power Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 31m48.662s
Ernesto Viso Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 31m49.355s
Andrew Thompson Dallara F304 Renault 31m51.133s