Race: Bourdais takes win

The Frenchman made a great start and a series of fast laps in the early stages enabled him to establish a small but comfortable lead over Rodrigo Sperafico. When the Brazilian made a slight mistake and ran wide, the Super Nova driver looked to have the race in the bag, but Sperafico fought back impressively to close right up to the leader.

However, no matter how hard he tried he was not able to get close enough to make a move, and Bourdais made up for the disappointment of Brazil, where he dropped out of second place with a puncture, with his second career win.

"Rodrigo pushed as much as possible - he pushed me all the way," said Bourdais. "The car wasn't perfect but good enough to keep in front. Two poles and one win is a good start to the season."

After taking a slightly fortuitous win in Brazil, Sperafico showed that he's a genuine title contender with his performance at Imola. The Durango driver now heads the standings and admitted he had the championship in mind in the closing laps.

"My main aim was to finish and keep the championship lead going," he said. "From here I'm confident of continuing like this."

Third place went to Giorgio Pantano, who enjoyed a fantastic race-long battle with Antonio Pizzonia. The Italian lost ground at the start, but moved up a slot when the Brazilian went off at Acque Minerali. However, the Italian made a mistake of his own to let Pizzonia back through, but charged back with the fastest lap of the race to force the Petrobras driver into another error. From there Pantano held on to take third.

"For sure I made mistakes, but I didn't run in the winter test, so I had no dry set-up," he said. "My problem was simply too much wheelspin at the start."

For full F3000 results click here.