Hegewald dominates first Spa F2 race
Tobias Hegewald continued his domination of the Formula 2 weekend at Spa by taking a comfortable victory in race one
The German had no trouble maintaining his pole advantage either at the start or the restart after an early safety car period, and cruised away to beat Andy Soucek by four seconds.
Soucek's lonely second place gave the former GP2 man the championship lead following a variety of problems for the Red Bull proteges that had previously headed the points.
Third place qualifier Robert Wickens' car stuttered off the line and was collected by Jason Moore, ending their races immediately and prompting the safety car while their mangled machines were removed from the approach to La Source.
Pre-race championship leader Mirko Bortolotti could only get up to ninth after his poor qualifying session, while an early brush with Jens Hoing left Mikhail Aleshin - who started last anyway after a practice crash - a lap down.
Fast-starter Milos Pavlovic fend off a race-long challenge from Julien Jousse to take the final podium spot.
Henry Surtees had been set for fifth in a car hurriedly repaired after a second qualifying accident that saw him collect Armaan Ebrahim's crashed machine, but the Briton slowed on the final lap.
That allowed Jack Clarke and Tom Gladdis into the top six, with Henri Karjalainen and Edoardo Piscopo completing the scorers. This group had been shuffled by an early incident at Les Combes involving top ten contenders Jolyon Palmer, Alex Brundle and Philipp Eng.
Pos Rider Time/Gap 1. Tobias Hegewald 25m59.481s 2. Andy Soucek + 4.149s 3. Milos Pavlovic + 7.896s 4. Julien Jousse + 8.619s 5. Jack Clarke + 19.406s 6. Tom Gladdis + 19.955s 7. Henri Karjalainen + 21.720s 8. Edoardo Piscopo + 27.003s 9. Mirko Bortolotti + 34.193s 10. Kazim Vasiliauskas + 36.390s 11. Natacha Gachnang + 43.088s 12. German Sanchez + 43.641s 13. Nicola de Marco + 44.839s 14. Pietro Gandolfi +1m04.711s 15. Henry Surtees +1m11.026s 16. Jolyon Palmer +2m01.189s 17. Sebastian Hohenthal + 1 lap 18. Mikhail Aleshin + 1 lap Retirements: Philipp Eng 4 laps Alex Brundle 2 laps Carlos Iaconelli 1 lap Robert Wickens 0 laps Jens Hoing 0 laps Jason Moore 0 laps Armaan Ebrahim 0 laps
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