Van der Garde takes race one win

Despite the interruptions, the Dutchman was pursued all the way to the flag by Julien Jousse who gave no shortage of effort in search of his elusive first Formula Renault 3.5 series win.

In the end, he finished just 0.7s adrift of van der Garde, and the result moved Jousse into second in the championship, a vast 53 points behind van der Garde.

Fabio Carbone, on pole for Sunday's feature race, negotiated his way past several accidents to finish third from eighth on the grid.

Marcos Martinez had looked set to take the place, but was pressured into a spin by Carbone with ten laps to go.

Bertrand Baguette finished a distant fourth for Draco, ahead of Marco Bonanomi, who struggled for pace in the closing laps. RC Motorsport's Duncan Tappy kept it clean to finish an impressive sixth on only his second World Series meeting.

Victory could, and perhaps should have gone to 19-year-old Alex Marsoin though.

Having led the field into the hairpin on lap one, the French rookie, was judged to have crept over his second-placed grid box before the start. And, although he gained no advantage, the Epsilon-Euskadi driver was forced to take a drive-through penalty on lap 13.

Before that, Marsoin had looked comfortable in the lead, running more than a second ahead of van der Garde.

"We were a little lucky with the Marsoin penalty," said van der Garde, "but he jumped the start so it was his mistake. The pit-stop race tomorrow should be interesting. I have 45 seconds of push-to-pass left so let's see what we can do."

Jousse's Tech 1 teammate, and poleman, Charles Pic, also had a less than textbook get-away, dropping to third at the first corner. Pic then came under pressure from Jousse.

While this was going on, the safety car was required on two separate occasions to deal with cars, those of Aleix Alcaraz and Esteban Guerrieri, which became stranded in dangerous positions.

But then as the race went green from the Guerrieri interruption on lap 11, Jousse squeezed passed Pic into Turn One. Half a lap later and chaos erupted at Turn 12.

Martinez dove between the Tech 1 drivers to steal third on the road, as behind Molina rammed into the side-pod of his Prema team-mate Barba, sending both cars sideways across the road. To add insult to injury for Marsoin's Epsilon-Euskadi team, Barba did a power spin turn recovery into the path of their Brazilian driver Mario Romancini, resulting in the need for the final appearance of the safety-car.

On the restart Pic dropped back after sustaining contact at Turn One, and when Martinez lost control two laps later, Carbone was left to pick up a lonely third.

Pos  Driver                Team                             Time
 1.  Giedo van der Garde   P1 Motorsport                    44:19.998
 2.  Julien Jousse         Tech 1 Racing                    + 0.719
 3.  Fabio Carbone         Ultimate-Signature               + 5.351
 4.  Bertrand Baguette     International Draco Racing       + 9.049
 5.  Marco Bonanomi        Red Devil Team Comtec            + 17.774
 6.  Duncan Tappy          RC Motorsport                    + 18.508
 7.  James Walker          Fortec Motorsport                + 19.165
 8.  Pablo Sanchez         Interwetten.Com Racing           + 24.447
 9.  Mikhail Aleshin       Carlin Motorsport                + 24.954
10.  Marco Barba           International Draco Racing       + 25.329
11.  Pasquale Disabatino   Red Devil Team Comtec            + 25.996
12.  Fairuz Fauzy          Fortec Motorsport                + 27.422
13.  Marcos Martinez       Pons Racing                      + 28.106
14.  Claudio Cantelli      RC Motorsport                    + 29.312
15.  Pippa Mann            P1 Motorsport                    + 34.001
16.  Daniil Move           KTR                              + 39.801
17.  Alexandre Marsoin     Epsilon-Euskadi                  + 45.434
18.  Charles Pic           Tech 1 Racing                    + 3 laps

Retirements:

    Driver                  Team                        Laps
    Guillaume Moreau        KTR                          13
    Alvaro Barba            Prema Powerteam              12
    Miguel Molina           Prema Powerteam              11
    Mario Romancini         Epsilon-Euskadi              11
    Robert Wickens          Carlin Motorsport            11
    Esteban Guerrieri       Ultimate-Signature            8
    Aleix Alcaraz           Pons Racing                   1
    Salvador Duran          Interwetten.Com Racing        1

Fastest lap: Julien Jousse, 1:34.537 on lap 21