Race 1: Heikki wins
A delighted Heikki Kovalainen will gun for a double win this afternoon after taking the sprint race in the World Series by Nissan at Jerez this morning (Sunday). Pons Racing's lead driver, already crowned champion, drove a perfect race from pole position and won comfortably from his season-long challenger Tiago Monteiro
Kovalainen was never likely to lose after he fitted "joker" tyres for this race. Under normal circumstances drivers have to start with their qualifying tyres, but twice in the season they are to use brand-new "jokers." Several drivers have a joker card left to play this weekend and Kovalainen was one of them.
He didn't pull away at an enormous rate as some joker users have done this year, but Monteiro was never a threat. The Carlin Motorsport driver came home just over two seconds back. Monteiro's team-mate Olivier Pla also wore jokers from fifth on the grid, and moved up to third at the start. But then he was unable to make much impression on the Portuguese when he had the advantage early on, and gradually dropped back.
Jean-Cristophe Ravier watched and waited behind the Carlin duo but endured a dull race. Narain Karthikeyan was never a threat to him - the Indian had mostly to worry about the joker-shod Tristan Gommendy behind him. Drive of the morning was Enrique Bernoldi's who overtook three cars to move up to seventh and take fastest lap. But his poor qualifying will again leave him with a big task in the pit-stop race this afternoon.
Heikki Kovalainen (Pons Racing) 27m22.149s
Tiago Monteiro (Carlin Motorsport) +2.416s
Olivier Pla (Carlin Motorsport) +6.422s
Jean-Cristophe Ravier (Epsilon Euskadi) +7.075s
Narain Karthikeyan (RC Motorsport) +8.813s
Tristan Gommendy (Saulnier Racing) +9.629s
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