Garcia takes first win at Spa

The Spaniard mastered the tricky downhill start from the front row and jumped pole-man Pastor Maldonado. It was a lead Garcia was to hold to the flag.

Alx Danielsson had also moved passed Maldonado into second, but crashed out spectacularly at the high-speed Blanchimont corner on lap seven after suffering a punctured rear tyre The safety car was brought out for five laps as the circuit was cleared and medics attended to Danielsson.

The interlude proved a welcome respite for Andy Soucek in third place, who had to drive almost one-handed after suffering a fissured bone in his finger, the result of a practice accident. When the race restarted there was only time for three laps of racing and Soucek managed to hold off the advances of Alvaro Parente for a spot on the podium.

"I'm really happy with the win as it moves me into the lead of the championship," said Garcia. "When I saw Danielsson's crashed car I didn't feel that I had to change my style (to avoid a cut tyre) because I don't use the kerbs much anyway."

The race was initially delayed owing to over-running repairs to the Armco on the Kemmel straight. The damage occurred after an accident in the preceding GT3 race. The race length had been cut to 18 laps, or a maximum time of 40 minutes, from the scheduled 20 laps or 45 minute maximum.

When the race finally started the front-runners led cleanly from the Eau Rouge start. However, there was trouble in the midfield under breaking for the Les Combes chicane, as Davide Valsecchi ran into the back of Jaap Van Lagen. Both retired, as did yesterday's podium finisher Sean McIntosh.

By lap five Danielsson had closed to just 0.8 seconds behind leader Garcia, as a two second margin opened over third man Maldonado. Danielsson's Comtec team had done a sterling job to re-tub his car after it was destroyed by debris from Sebastian Vettel's crash yesterday. But once again Danielsson was to be an innocent victim when running competitively.

The Swede's rear tyre let go entering Blanchimont, the super-fast sweeping left-hander before the Bus Stop chicane. The car was spinning before the impact with the tyre wall that violently threw the car back onto the run-off. It was several laps before Danielsson was removed from the car, and taken to the circuit medical centre for tests.

With the race under safety car conditions Milos Pavlovic and James Rossiter made contact at the La Source hairpin while in seventh and eighth positions. Pavlovic spun around to last whereas Rossiter continued unaffected.

"I don't think it was an innocent accident," said Pavlovic. "He really appeared to keep his foot in."

The stewards were also unimpressed by Rossiter's move and awarded him a 25 second penalty, dropping him from sixth to last in the results.

It was a disappointing end to Pavlovic's points chances after he had made a brave move around the outside of Rossiter at the quick Fagnes sequence on lap two. Pavlovic has had a real transformation in performance since moving to EuroInternational for this race, setting fastest lap at the end of the race with a clear track.

Results

Pos  Driver                Team                     Time
 1.  Borja Garcia          RC Motorsport       41:16.177
 2.  Pastor Maldonado      Draco                +  1.068
 3.  Andy Soucek           Interwetten          +  3.380
 4.  Alvaro Parente        Victory Engineering  +  3.853
 5.  Eric Salignon         Interwetten          +  7.250
 6.  Michael Aleshin       Carlin Motorsport    +  8.419
 7.  Ben Hanley            Cram Competition     +  9.098
 8.  Marco Bonanomi        Tech 1 Racing        + 10.062
 9.  Robbie Kerr           KTR                  + 13.562
10.  Tomas Kostka          Draco                + 14.419
11.  Steven Kane           Epsilon Euskadi      + 15.580
12.  Hayanari Shimoda      Victory Engineering  + 15.735
13.  Alvaro Barba Lopez    Jenzer Motorsport    + 15.922
14.  Ryo Fukuda            Tech 1 Racing        + 17.442
15.  Patrick Pilet         GD Racing            + 18.252
16.  Gregory Franchi       Prema Powerteam      + 18.832
17.  Celso Miguez          Pons Racing          + 19.614
18.  Carlos Iaconelli      EuroInternational    + 21.242
19.  Matteo Meneghello     GD Racing            + 22.465
20.  Pasquale Di Sabatino  Cram Competition     + 23.434
21.  Alessandro Bonetti    Jenzer Motorsport    + 23.792
22.  Christian Montanari   Prema Powerteam      + 25.688
23.  Bruce Jouanny         RC Motorsport        + 26.630
24.  Milos Pavlovic        EuroInternational    + 30.339
25.  James Rossiter        Pons Racing          + 32.968
     Alx Danielsson        Comtec                 D.N.F.
     Jaap Van Lagen        Comtec                 D.N.F.
     Sean McIntosh         KTR                    D.N.F.
     Davide Valsecchi      Epsilon Euskadi        D.N.F.