Pla Overjoyed with Tough Win

Pla led away from pole put was under pressure all through the race, initially from Clivio Piccione and then later from Scott Speed. Pla won the race by half a second over Speed, with Championship leader Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg just behind the American.

When asked to describe the event after the race, Pla laughed and said: "A lot of  pressure! Before the safety car it was okay - I could manage the gap to Piccione, but after the safety car I began to move the car and had a big degradation of my tyres, so that's the reason why I came back a bit to the others.

"But I just tried to stay very concentrated and to make no mistakes. And it's really good because of the results in Monaco and Barcelona, so it's a fantastic result."

Pla has suffered a lot of poor luck of late - his DPR team were quick early in the season but have seemingly slipped back of late, while Pla himself has had a number of off-track excursions in recent races, most notably in Monaco and Barcelona.

After this bad luck, today's win was like a balm for the genial Frenchman: "Yeah, absolutely - I was so happy for every mechanic, for everybody on the team - this win is for all of them. It is fantastic!

"For sure it's a very good victory for me, and very good for the team. And I hope that it's the beginning of the season for us now."