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Baguette takes win and points lead

Bertrand Baguette survived a wheel banging run down to the first corner to claim his maiden victory of 2009 at Le Mans today

The result thrusts the Belgian into the overall lead of the Formula Renault 3.5 Series.

From third on the grid, Baguette ran three-abreast with slow starting pole-sitter Marco Barba and Hungaroring winner Pasquale Di Sabatino away from the line. Contact was made between Baguette and Di Sabatino at the braking point for the Dunlop Chicane, forcing Baguette to cut the exit of the corner as he completed the manoeuvre and took the lead.

"I had a big vibration after hitting Di Sabatino," said Baguette, "and my car was particularly difficult in the left-hand corners. The team told me on the radio that [championship rivals Marcos] Martinez and [James] Walker were in trouble, so I just managed my pace at the end."

Second on the road went to Baguette's Draco team-mate Barba, but the Spaniard was slapped with a 10 second post race penalty, and dropped to an amended fifth, for cutting the exit of the Dunlop chicane while passing Di Sabatino on lap 19.

Oliver Turvey scored his third consecutive third place, displaying excellent racecraft from sixth on the grid. Turvey dived inside Carlin team-mate Jaime Alguersuari at La Chapelle when the reigning British Formula 3 champion locked a front right wheel and drifted wide on lap 23.

Charles Pic completed the top six behind Alguersuari, although the Frenchman trailed Jon Lancaster across the finish line. Lancaster's charge from 12th on the grid was one of the highlights of the race, but the Comtec man was another to be hit with a 10 second penalty for running outside the limits of the track.

In the closing laps Fairuz Fauzy responded to Lancaster's attempts at building the necessary time buffer to secure seventh place, and pipped the Englishman by 0.7s.

First and second in the standings entering the weekend, Martinez and Walker endured troubled races. Martinez's chances of finishing in the points were killed with an early puncture, while Walker retired following an attempted pass on GP2 racer Edoardo Mortara at Dunlop. The ensuing contact resulted in the instant retirement of both men.

Pos  Driver                Team               Time/Gap
 1.  Bertrand Baguette     Draco            46m14.448s
 2.  Pasquale Di Sabatino  RC               +   4.870s
 3.  Oliver Turvey         Carlin           +   6.811s
 4.  Jaime Alguersuari     Carlin           +   7.378s
 5.  Marco Barba           Draco            +  10.675s
 6.  Charles Pic           Tech 1           +  10.820s
 7.  Fairuz Fauzy          Fortec           +  18.039s
 8.  Jon Lancaster         Comtec           +  18.769s
 9.  Miguel Molina         Ultimate         +  21.924s
10.  Daniel Clos           Epsilon Euskadi  +  24.392s
11.  Daniil Move           P1               +  26.178s
12.  Greg Mansell          Ultimate         +  26.321s
13.  Guillaume Moreau      SG               +  29.062s
14.  Sten Pentus           Fortec           +  33.143s
15.  Chris van der Drift   Epsilon Euskadi  +  33.454s
16.  Mihai Marinescu       Interwetten      +  51.390s
17.  Marcos Martinez       Pons             +1m08.277s
18.  Federico Leo          Pons             +1m09.062s
19.  Cristiano Morgado     Comtec           +    1 lap

Retirements:

     Edoardo Mortara       Tech 1           24 laps
     James Walker          P1               24 laps
     Julian Leal           Prema            23 laps
     Filip Salaquarda      Prema            16 laps
     Anton Nebylitskiy     SG               0 laps
     Adrian Zaugg          Interwetten      0 laps

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