Duran wins race two at Monza

The Mexican is the first driver take to win a World Series by Renault race run under the new reverse top-ten grid format.

Lining up second, Duran had the jump on pole-sitter Pippa Mann away from the line. The Cram driver held her pursuers at bay for the first three laps while Duran made his escape, opening a three second margin on the first lap alone.

Milos Pavlovic took third on home soil for his Draco outfit, having fought his way up from fifth.

Sebastian Vettel rounded off the podium, the German fortunate to survive a last lap collision with race one winner, and Carlin team-mate, Mikhail Aleshin.

With Aleshin retiring in the accident, the new championship leader is Alvaro Parente who finished fourth.

"It's a strange feeling to win after all the problems we've had," said Duran. "The car didn't work at all on new tyres in qualifying yesterday.

"Having the opportunity to start second certainly helped with the result, but today I had one of the best cars out there."

It was Vettel who was the man on the move in the early laps. Having leapt from sixth to fourth by the first corner, he made short work of his next target Miguel Molina, out-braking the Spaniard into Turn 1 at the start of the second lap.

Mann's car in second looked composed, but in her mirrors the line of cars forming along Monza's generous straights lengthened hastily. Vettel and Pavlovic came past her in unison around the outside of the Curva di Biassono on lap three.

The safety car was deployed on the following lap after Richard Philippe found the barriers on the exit of the second Lesmo, before coming to rest partially on the track.

"When I was behind Salvador and the safety car I thought it would be an easy day," said Vettel. "However he was fast and I also saw no reason to hold up Pavlovic behind me who was much quicker."

Pavlovic ascended to second with a brake locking move on Vettel into Turn 1 on lap eight. Behind, Vettel came under the close scrutiny of Aleshin who was homing in at the rate of 0.5 seconds per lap.

Although the top three held station until the chequered flag, the outcome for third was a cliff-hanger until the end.

Aleshin, having dominated proceedings yesterday, was clearly the faster of the Carlin drivers, and Vettel was forced to defend the inside line on almost every lap entering the first and second chicanes.

"It was a long race, fortunately I had plenty of 'push-to-pass' left to play with to hold him station," said Vettel.

On the last lap, Aleshin's last real opportunity to get through fell at the first chicane.

There was just enough room to put a nose alongside Vettel at the apex, but with so little margin to spare, when the German turned in the pair made contact and both rotated.

Aleshin pulled over with suspension damage, while Vettel recovered as Parente, eight seconds behind, was too far back to take advantage.

Celso Miguez put in a spirited performance to take fifth, a much welcome result for both him and Eurointernational team boss Antonio Ferrari.

Both Victory cars made strong progress from dismal starting positions. Giedo van der Garde finished seventh from 19th, before being slapped with a twenty-five second penalty for cutting a chicane.

His team-mate Charlie Kimball was thus promoted to eighth having started 24th on the grid.

The race was spared a further a safety car period thanks to quick work from the marshals after Pasquale Di Sabatino speared into Carlos Iaconelli and Alvaro Barba at Turn 1 on lap 11.

The spate of punctures which hit yesterday's race one was mercifully not repeated. As a precaution Michelin imposed new guidelines on pressures and camber, in addition to allowing everyone to start on a new set.

Results:

Pos   Driver          Team                    Time
 1.   Duran           Interwetten.com         24  laps
 2.   Pavlovic        Draco Racing            +  2.623
 3.   Vettel          Carlin Motorsport       + 11.510
 4.   Parente         Tech 1 Racing           + 14.667
 5.   Miguez          Eurointernational       + 20.717
 6.   Albuquerque     Epsilon Euskadi         + 23.831
 7.   Jousse          Tech 1 Racing           + 25.051
 8.   Kimball         Victory Engineering     + 31.608
 9.   Hanley          Prema Powerteam         + 33.470
10.   Fauzy           Cram Competition        + 34.476
11.   Van Lagen       Red Devil Team Comtec   + 35.560
12.   Van der Garde   Victory Engineering     + 49.397
13..  Nunez           Red Devil Team Comtec   + 57.686
14..  Walker          Fortec Motorsport       + 57.992
15.   Mann            Cram Competition        + 58.958
16.   Move            Interwetten.com         + 1:01.6
17.   Maassen         Prema Powerteam         + 1:05.1
18.   Bonanomi        RC Motorsport           + 1:22.8
19.   Aleshin         Carlin Motorsport       +  1 lap
20.   Risatti         GD Racing               +  1 lap


RETIREMENTS

      Baguette        KTR                       16 laps
      Barba           Draco Racing              12 laps
      Iaconelli       Pons Racing               11 laps
      Di Sabatino     GD Racing                 11 laps
      Molina          Pons Racing                8 laps
      Ciompi          Eurointernational          7 laps
      Moreau          KTR                        7 laps
      Piccione        RC Motorsport              6 laps
      Valsecchi       Epsilon Euskadi            4 laps
      Philippe        Fortec Motorsport          3 laps