Race 1: Piquet beats JR

Piquet (Piquet Sports) made a fine start from pole position and never lost the lead all morning. But Rossiter, of Fortec Motorsport, made the championship leader work for his trophy. The Brit was rarely more than a second behind Piquet, and his near identical lap times meant that Piquet could not afford any mistakes. But almost needless to say, the smooth Piquet didn't make any and Rossiter had to settle for a clear second place.

"He was a bit closer on some laps than on others," said Piquet. "But it was OK to keep in front after I made a very good start. I'm glad we're having a good weekend after Zandvoort."

Danny Watts, driving the Promatecme Lola-Dome car, had almost driven round Rossiter to take second at Stowe on the first lap. But the local driver couldn't quite make it on the outside and dropped back in the second half of the race. He finished well ahead of Will Power (Alan Docking Racing) and Adam Carroll (P1 Motorsport).

Carroll, second in the points, started the race third but got passed by both Watts and Power on the opening lap. He starts the afternoon race second behind Piquet, but will be looking for more pace than he showed this morning. His team spent the whole day at the track yesterday despite their being no track action - they changed almost everything in the car to try and combat a mystery lack of top speed, but have not yet found that magic something.



Nelson Angelo Piquet (Dallara-Mugen) 26m14.820s
James Rossiter (Dallara-Opel) +0.715s
Danny Watts (Lola-Dome-Mugen) +8.310s
Will Power (Dallara-Mugen) +11.045s
Adam Carroll (Dallara-Mugen) +14.050s
Marko Asmer (Dallara-Renault) +18.515s