Vergne takes win 13 at Snetterton

With a downpour soaking the circuit a few minutes before the off, all the drivers started on wets. Vergne made a good start to challenge team-mate and polesitter Adriano Buzaid but was rebuffed and had fallen to fourth by the end of the lap.

Buzaid was the star of the opening laps, pulling away from the fast-starting Raikkonen Robertson Racing machine of Felipre Nasr, who was up from row three. Despite a brief off at the Esses, Vergne soon settled into third thanks to a mistake by Nasr's team-mate Daisuke Nakajima.

Buzaid opened up a lead of almost five seconds before Nasr started exchanging fastest laps with the Carlin driver.

Vergne initially couldn't keep pace with the leading pair, but started chipping in to Nasr's advantage at around one-third distance.

As the recently-crowned champion closed in on second, Buzaid went off at Coram and his lead was halved. Vergne immediately overtook Nasr and found himself within three seconds of Buzaid.

It took the Frenchman just three laps to catch his Brazilian team-mate. When Buzaid decided to defend on the wet inside line on the run to Riches with four laps to go, Vergne swept around the outside to grab the lead.

A mistake by Vergne at Coram then allowed Buzaid to retaliate, but Vergne defended before drawing away to win by 3.6 seconds. Nasr closed on the fading Buzaid in the closing stages, but the Carlin man held on for second.

Behind the leading trio came Fortec's Oliver Webb. He fought James Calado early on before going by and pulling away to take a lonely fourth. Calado - Webb's rival for second in the standings - eventually fell back to eighth.

Hitech's William Buller also starred. After running seventh early on he gambled on slicks as the track dried. He returned around a minute behind the leader, but soon became the fastest man on track.

Lapping up to five seconds faster than those ahead, Buller recovered to seventh and fell just half a second shy of pipping team-mate Gabriel Dias for sixth.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Car    Time/Gap
 1.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Carlin               D/V  30m04.032s
 2.  Adriano Buzaid        Carlin               D/V    + 3.635s
 3.  Felipe Nasr           Raikkonen Robertson  D/M    + 4.102s
 4.  Oli Webb              Fortec               D/M   + 13.702s
 5.  Daisuke Nakajima      Raikkonen Robertson  D/M   + 16.077s
 6.  Gabriel Dias          Hitech               D/V   + 16.744s
 7.  William Buller        Hitech               D/V   + 17.247s
 8.  James Calado          Carlin               D/V   + 21.973s
 9.  Daniel McKenzie       Fortec               D/M   + 31.744s
10.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin               D/V   + 35.002s
11.  Carlos Huertas        Raikkonen Robertson  D/M   + 37.700s
12.  Adderly Fong          Sino Vision          D/M   + 38.261s
13.  Alex Brundle          T-Sport              D/V   + 39.113s
14.  Lucas Foresti         Carlin               D/V   + 39.332s
15.  Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport              D/H   + 46.125s
16.  Maxim Snegirev        Fortec               D/M   + 46.373s
17.  Jay Bridger           Litespeed            D/M     + 1 lap
18.  James Cole            T-Sport              D/H     + 1 lap
19.  Juan Carlos Sistos    West-Tec             D/H    + 3 laps

Retirements:

     Hywel Lloyd           CF/Manor             D/M  9 laps
     Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin               D/V  5 laps