Svendsen-Cook wins at Monza

The Carlin racer started on the front row of the grid and swept past poleman Riki Christodoulou (Hitech) as they headed down to the Rettifilio chicane at the beginning of the second lap.

Christodoulou gradually fell back to fourth, behind Fortec's Will Buller and yesterday's race winner Felipe Nasr (Carlin), as Svendsen-Cook built a 2.5-second cushion.

Nasr climbed carefully through from sixth on the grid and was the fastest man on the track during the middle portion of the race, but took several laps to find a way by Buller.

He eventually stole second at the first chicane at three quarters distance, before dragging Buller with him as he set off after team-mate Svendsen-Cook.

This pair closed to within 1s of Svendsen-Cook, but the Brit responded with his personal best lap of the race on the penultimate tour and held on to win.

Christodoulou came home four seconds adrift of Buller in a lonely fourth, chased at a distance by Carlin's Jazeman Jaafar.

Jaafar's Colombian team-mate Carlos Huertas started fourth, but got shuffled back to sixth in the early laps before entering into a mighty duel with Fortec's Lucas Foresti - with occasional cameos by T-Sport's Menasheh Idafar.

Huertas eventually got the better of his South American compatriot on the penultimate lap, as Foresti slipped back and came under renewed attack from Idafar and Sino Vision's Hywel Lloyd.

Foresti had been locking his brakes throughout the race and went too deep into turn one trying to defend from Lloyd on the last lap. The Brazilian careered into the back of Idafar and tipped the British-born Bahraini into a spin, which allowed Lloyd to escape with seventh and forced Idafar to crab home last of the classified finishers in 18th.

Kevin Magnussen (Carlin), who rose quickly from 15th to the fringes of the top 10 in the early stages, was thus promoted to eighth, while Pietro Fantin (Hitech) pipped Foresti to ninth on the line.

Results - 12 laps:


Pos  Driver                Team/Car                     Time/Gap
 1.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin Dallara-VW          21m30.188s
 2.  Felipe Nasr           Carlin Dallara-VW            + 1.045s
 3.  William Buller        Fortec Dallara-Merc          + 1.568s
 4.  Riki Christodoulou    Hitech Dallara-VW            + 6.636s
 5.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW            + 7.713s
 6.  Carlos Huertas        Carlin Dallara-VW           + 15.692s
 7.  Hywel Lloyd           Sino Vision Dallara-Merc    + 20.050s
 8.  Kevin Magnussen       Carlin Dallara-VW           + 20.506s
 9   Pietro Fantin         Hitech Dallara-VW           + 22.013s
10.  Lucas Foresti         Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 22.030s
11   Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW           + 22.205s
12.  Harry Tincknell       Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 22.397s
13   Scott Pye             Double R Dallara-Merc       + 28.940s
14.  Yann Cunha            T-Sport Dallara-VW          + 31.305s
15.  Bruno Mendez          Hitech Dallara-VW           + 31.651s
16   Bart Hylkema          T-Sport Dallara-Mugen       + 32.581s
17.  Adderly Fong          Sino Vision Dallara-Merc    + 43.369s
18.  Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport Dallara-VW          + 53.212s

Retirements/Not classified:

     Fahmi Ilyas           Fortec Dallara-Merc            9 laps
     Pipo Derani           Double R Dallara-Merc          2 laps