Lausitz Ferraris: Shovlin ahead

Ange Barde had looked set to repeat his season-long dominant form at the German venue with a win on Saturday but he retired from Sunday's feature race with steering troubles. He still leads the standings by 31 points from Shovlin but with 100 points still up for grabs this season, nothing is certain. Michael Cullen had a weekend to forget, only having scored a handful of points.

Frenchman Barde had been gifted the lead of race one after polesitter Klaus Engelhorn was slapped with a stop-go penalty for jumping the start. Barde was followed to the flag 5.5 seconds later by Italian charger Luciano Linos and a Shovlin pushed all the way by Tony Ring.

In the second race, the stage was set for a classic three-way showdown between Barde, Linos and Shovlin. When Martin Lanting's car caught fire on lap five and the safety car was deployed, though, a bizarre series of incidents unfolded. First Linos pitted from second place and his mechanics apparently checked for a puncture. Barde then came in on the next lap with steering problems, the upshot being that Shovlin inherited a lead he was never to relinquish.

As in race one, the victory-hungry Tony Ring pursued the Irishman all the way to the finishing line and ended up only 1.5 seconds adrift. Diminutive Italian Pasquale Gagliardi came home third, a further 1.5 seconds back.

In class two, Emilio Giusti shot to second place in the championship after a perfect weekend in which he sealed a double victory. The fast-starting Italian beat Norbert Walchhofer and Markus Lehner in race one before destroying the opposition by almost 18 seconds on Sunday. But it is Lehner who, with a second and a third place, retakes the series lead.

Ange Barde F 26m51.851s
Luciano Linos I 26m57.353s
Paddy Shovlin IRL 27m02.225s
Tony Ring SWE 27m02.608s
Nick Hommerson NED 27m07.527s
Pasquale Gagliardi I 27m08.425s

Race 2
1 Paddy Shovlin IRL 44m52.609s
Tony Ring SWE 44m54.117s
Pasquale Gagliardi I 44m55.678s
Norbert Graf D 44m58.550s
Nick Hommerson NED 45m02.559s
Luciano Linos I 45m09.666s