Toccacelo Dominant in Zolder

The Italian held off fellow front row man Andreas Zuber at the start and was never headed, stretching his lead out to more than two seconds before slowing slightly towards the end of the race.

Will Power, fourth on the grid, didn't make the start of the race, forced out with a transmission failure. Because of this the trio of Zuber, Robert Kubica and Tristan Gommendy ran together behind the lead, easily dropping the rest of the field who were unable to stay with the pace of the leading group.

Markus Winkelhock was forced into the pits on lap four as a result of a gearbox failure; he was able to rejoin towards the end of the race right behind the battle for second, running slightly faster with new tyres but staying out of their way.

There were remarkably few errors considering it was the opening round: Matteo Meneghello spun off harmlessly into the gravel trap at the midpoint of the race, while Frederic Vervisch stalled in the middle of the chicane with four laps to go, one before Maldonado got onto the dirty side of the track and off into the gravel.

But Toccacelo sailed on past it all, seemingly untouchable in the hot conditions. After the race he noted: "I think that Zuber got off to a better start, but I managed to take advantage of pole position to get to the first corner in front.

"For the first few laps I concentrated on trying to avoid making any mistakes because the track was dirty, and after that I attacked right to the end."

World Series by Renault - Race One, Zolder (19 Laps):

Pos Driver               Team             Time
 1. Enrico Toccacelo     Victory           26:03.158
 2. Andreas Zuber        Carlin            +   1.530
 3. Robert Kubica        Epsilon           +   2.432
 4. Tristan Gommendy     KTR               +   3.141
 5. Felix Porteiro       Epsilon           +  15.295
 6. Adrian Valles        Pons              +  16.284
 7. Christian Montanari  Draco             +  16.995
 8. Simon Pagenaud       Saulnier          +  18.813
 9. Ryo Fukuda           Saulnier          +  23.348
10. Patrick Pilet        Jenzer            +  28.326
11. Damien Pasini        Cram              +  28.839
12. Celso Miguez         Pons              +  29.629
13. Karun Chandhok       RC Motorsport     +  37.079
14. Tomas Kostka         Victory           +  37.544
15. Eric Salignon        Cram              +  37.988
16. Giorgio Mondini      Eurointernational +  40.316
17. Milos Pavlovic       GD Racing         +  43.041
18. Jaap Van Lagen       KTR               +  49.518
19. Frederik Vervish     GD Racing         +  1 Lap
20. Pastor Maldonado     Dams              +  3 Laps

Did Not Finish:

    Matteo Meneghello    Eurointernational
    Giovanni Tedeschi    RC Motorsport
    Markus Winkelhock    Draco
    Ivan Bellarosa       Avelon