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Guerrieri takes another FR3.5 win

Esteban Guerrieri delivered the perfect tonic to his off-track budgetary concerns by claiming a lights-to-flag victory at Brno, his second consecutive Formula Renault 3.5 win

Having triumphed at Spa in May, the Argentinean was forced to sit on the sidelines at the last race in Monaco and is fighting to raise the backing to participate at the next round at Magny-Cours.

Czech team ISR had staged a lock out of the front row in qualifying, but pole-sitter Filip Salaquarda was unable to capitalise on his advantage and was passed by team-mate Guerrieri into Turn 1. Salaquarda's hopes for a strong result in front of his home crowd would end in the gravel on lap two.

Red Bull Junior driver Brendon Hartley inherited the position but was unable to mount a challenge for the lead, finishing just under two seconds adrift of Guerrieri at the flag.

Anton Nebylitskiy delivered a career best result of third, carving through from tenth on the grid to fourth by the completion of the opening lap and thereafter demonstrating a competitive turn of speed.

"I feel great," said Guerrieri. "After the win at Spa it was not the best way not to go to Monaco, but the money situation was not in our favour. I understood that and wanted to help the team.

"I feel sorry for Filip, I think he moved a bit when the red lights were on. When he stopped, the lights changed and I was able to get a run up alongside. We said before the race that whoever got to Turn 1 first would take the corner, and I couldn't back off from the inside."

Draco's Julian Leal was another to achieve his best result of the season with fourth, the Colombian stealing the position from Keisuke Kunimoto on the inside of Turn 3 on lap three.

Neither of the championship leaders, Mikhail Aleshin and Daniel Ricciardo were able to add to their tally. Fifth place starter Aleshin was forced to pit on the opening lap, and after restarting to record the fastest lap the Russian came in once more to retire.

From a grid slot of 14th after falling foul of a red flag in qualifying, Ricciardo always had his work cut out to register a score. The British Formula 3 champion's progress up the order ended after reaching the back of a fierce battle between a racy Greg Mansell and a defensive Jon Lancaster.

Mansell's team-mate Stefano Coletti made rather better headway, producing one of the drives of the race to charge up into ninth from 17th.

Aleshin maintains his lead in the championship with 50 points, seven clear of Ricciardo. Fortec's Sten Pentus has gained ground courtesy of sixth place today, and is now six points back from Ricciardo in third.

Pos  Driver             Team                Time/Gap
 1.  Esteban Guerrieri  ISR               46m47.517s
 2.  Brendon Hartley    Tech 1              + 1.904s
 3.  Anton Nebylitskiy  KMP                 + 2.994s
 4.  Julian Leal        Draco               + 4.415s
 5.  Keisuke Kunimoto   Epsilon Euskadi    + 11.035s
 6.  Sten Pentus        Fortec             + 12.011s
 7.  Jan Charouz        P1                 + 16.740s
 8.  Nathanael Berthon  Draco              + 17.818s
 9.  Stefano Coletti    Comtec             + 26.716s
10.  Jon Lancaster      Fortec             + 34.222s
11.  Greg Mansell       Comtec             + 35.372s
12.  Daniel Ricciardo   Tech 1             + 35.647s
13.  Nelson Panciatici  Junior Lotus       + 46.604s
14.  Walter Grubmuller  P1                 + 46.720s
15.  Filip Salaquarda   ISR                + 47.350s
16.  Jake Rosenzweig    Carlin             + 56.270s
17.  Sergio Canamasas   FHV Interwetten    + 56.656s
18.  Albert Costa       Epsilon Euskadi  + 1m33.715s

Retirements:

     Federico Leo       Pons             19 laps
     Victor Garcia      KMP              17 laps
     Daniel Zampieri    Pons             11 laps
     Bruno Mendez       FHV Interwetten  8 laps
     Mikhail Aleshin    Carlin           8 laps
     Daniil Move        Junior Lotus     0 laps

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