Gommendy Takes Surprise Win

Both Carlin Motorsport's Andreas Zuber and Epsilon's Robert Kubica looked comfortable in the lead at different stages of the race, however both finished down the field.

Zuber dominated the early stages, extending his gap to 15 seconds because he left his mandatory pitstop until the end of the allowed window.

However, the Safety Car was deployed before Zuber had pitted and series rules state you have to make your pitstop under green flag conditions. Zuber, therefore, fell down the order, when he finally made his stop.

Robert Kubica inherited the lead after Zuber pitted and looked comfortable, but his electronics failed on the penultimate lap and he coasted to a halt. It meant that Gommendy, who had only started seventh, took a surprise victory.

"It was an incredible race," Gommendy said. "We had problems in qualifying with the gearshift so we decided to stop early and then push as hard as possible. I didn't see what happened with everybody else but this should set me up well for my home race of Le Mans next month."

Local driver Andreas Valles finished second despite a last ditch attempt to take the lead from Gommendy.

Eric Salignon finished third and was also a beneficiary of others misfortune. The Frenchman spun down the order early on, but finished third after Will Power lost the final podium slot after a collision with Christian Montanari.

Salignon said: "God was with me or something - to spin, have those cars crash infront of me and for me and to then finish third is incredible."

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Driver               Team               Time
 1.  Tristan Gommendy     KTR                40:41.311
 2.  Adrian Valles        Pons               +   0.834
 3.  Eric Salignon        Cram               +   2.533
 4.  Damien Pasini        Cram               +   5.005
 5.  Tomas Kostka         Victory            +   7.109
 6.  Giorgio Mondini      Eurointernational  +   9.849
 7.  Patrick Pilet        Jenzer             +  10.274
 8.  Colin Fleming        Jenzer             +  10.828
 9.  Ryo Fukuda           Saulnier           +  13.613
10.  Andreas Zuber        Carlin             +  14.793
11.  Simon Pagenaud       Saulnier           +  18.270
12.  Markus Winkelhock    Draco              +  26.507 *
13.  Daniel La Rosa       Interwetten        +1:24.451
14.  Will Power           Carlin             +   1 Lap
15.  Christian Montanari  Draco              +   1 Lap
16.  Robert Kubica        Epsilon            +   1 Lap
17.  Frederik Vervisch    GD                 +   1 Lap
18.  Mehdi Bennani        Avelon             +   1 Lap
    
NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

Driver              Team      On Lap
Karun Chandhok      RC          19  
Celso Miguez        Pons        13  
Raffaele Giammaria  Dams        12  
Giovanni Tedeschi   RC          12  
Enrico Toccacelo    Victory     10  
Ivan Bellarosa      Avelon       4  
Felix Porteiro      Epsilon      2  
Jaap Van Lagen      KTR          1  
Alx Danielsson      Dams         1  
Milos Pavlovic      GD           0