Van der Garde also wins race two

In contrast to his comfortable win in race one, the P1 Motorsport driver was made to work for the result as a charging Alvaro Barba came within 1.1 seconds of the Dutchman at the flag.

Van der Garde struggled with flat-spotted front tyres, sustained at a restart following a safety car period, and the gap between the two drivers fluctuated.

"I had to really push to hold off Alvaro," said van der Garde. "The problem was caused by my mistake, I was trying to brake too hard after the safety car and the flat-spots that I received induced terrible under-steer in the low speed parts of the circuit.

"I have to thank my team who worked until three in the morning last night to repair damage to my car. We had a problem with the data after the race yesterday, and when we opened the car up we discovered that my driveshaft was cracked and about to break. I was very fortunate that it held together for the win in race one.

"It has been a perfect weekend, now I can go and celebrate both the result and my birthday."

Barba also benefited from the revised 2008 qualifying format. Having crashed his Prema Powerteam car at the first corner of race one, the Spaniard retained his fourth place qualifying position on the grid for the second race allowing him to take the runner-up spot.

Rookie Charles Pic finished third ahead of his more senior team-mate, Julien Jousse. The pair were instructed to hold formation in the final laps by the Toulouse-based outfit.

The safety car was brought out following an opening lap accident involving Bertrand Baguette and Fabio Carbone at the Curva Grande.

Carbone's Ultimate-Signature car made a hefty impact with the tyres, but the Brazilian wasn't seriously injured and was lucid enough to have a post-incident debate with Baguette.

The pair, who were lined up in fifth and seventh on the grid, were candidates for a podium finish, but must wait now until Spa next weekend to realise their potential.

After the restart at the end of lap two, a glorious four-way battle for the lead developed between Van der Garde, Marco Bonanomi, Robert Wickens and Alvaro Barba.

The action ended sourly at the Variante della Roggia when Wickens attempted to pass Bonanomi around the outside. Bonanomi made a controversial change to his line, nudging Wickens just enough to send him off into the barriers.

Although the Canadian did well to avoid a much larger accident, the Carlin driver pulled up with broken suspension on the succeeding straight, running down to the first Lesmo. Bonanomi was black-flagged for his role in the incident, and relinquished his second place.

For Wickens, it was the second time in the weekend that he had the opportunity to familiarise himself with the outside wall at the second chicane, having crashed there in race one when Carbone's endplate slashed his rear tyre.

"I don't need to say that I'm extremely disappointed," said Wickens. "Mac, my engineer, and I did a great job to produce a fast car, and two non-finishes do not represent where we are. The guys who hit me were disqualified, but that doesn't give me my races back. Now I know the level of respect people race with over here, I will treat them the same at the next race."

Guillaume Moreau and James Walker put on a spectacle of wheel-to-wheel action in their dispute over sixth place, which was eventually settled in Moreau's favour.

Salvador Duran had finished a provisional ninth, from last on the grid, following a startling get-away in which the Interwetten driver made a rise from 26th to 13th position in half a lap.

The Mexican was hit with a 25-second penalty post-race, after he was judged to have gained positions by driving out of the bounds of the race track.

Pos Driver                 Team                 Gap
 1. Giedo van der Garde    P1             42:10.389
 2. Alvaro Barba           Prema             +1.153
 3. Charles Pic            Tech 1           +14.101
 4. Julien Jousse          Tech 1           +14.954
 5. Mikhail Aleshin        Carlin           +18.164
 6. Guillaume Moreau       KTR              +23.703
 7. James Walker           Fortec           +24.220
 8. Marco Barba            Draco            +25.055
 9. Salvador Duran         Interwetten      +27.045
10. Aleix Alcaraz          RC               +31.212
11. Pablo Di Sabatino      Comtec           +31.595
12. Pippa Mann             P1               +35.816
13. Mario Romancini        Epsilon          +41.025
14. Daniel Move            KTR              +50.203
15. Julian Theobald        Fortec         +1:03.780
16. Maximo Cortes          Pons           +1:19.390

Not classified:

    Driver                 Team                Laps
    Miguel Molina          Prema                 20
    Marcos Martinez        Pons                  18
    Claudio Cantelli Jr    Ultimate              16
    Marco Bonanomi         Comtec                13
    Borja Garcia           RC                    13
    Alex Marsoin           Epsilon               12
    Pablo Sanchez          Interwetten           11
    Robert Wickens         Carlin                 7
    Bertrand Baguette      Draco                  0
    Fabio Carbone          Ultimate               0