Parente wins race two for Porto

Although John Martin was on pole for Beijing Guoan, having failed to take the start in race one due to a lose wheel, it was fellow front row man Parente (who had retired with a misfire in the opener) who leapt into the lead at the start, and he pulled out a 2.7s lead over Montagny before the pitstop cycle started.

Despite a number of pitstop hiccoughs this year, including earlier today when he stalled in race one, Parente's Atech Reid squad pulled off a perfect stop. Montagny wasn't going to let him have it easy, however, and closed the gap to within half a second with four laps remaining.

But each of them had equal push-to-pass usage to the finish, so the order stayed the same and Parente won by 0.8s. He is the ninth different race winner in the series this year.

"It was a good pitstop," said Parente. "It was just up to me to maintain it. It was a good battle with Franck."

Montagny added: "I'm happy with that, I pushed and pushed, and hoped for a mistake, but he didn't do one."

Tristan Gommendy, who starred in a charge to third for Galatasary, said: "The balance of the car was pretty, and we were the fastest on the track at the end of the race there."

Behind him, Maria de Villota (Atletico Madrid) atoned for her Jarama embarrassment by holding off Max Wissel (Basel) and Craig Dolby (Tottenham) for her best-ever finish in fourth.

Race one winner Yelmer Buurman came through to finish eighth for AC Milan, two places behind title rival Dolby.

Pos  Driver               Team                           Time/Gap
 1.  Alvaro Parente       FC Porto                     45m03.384s
 2.  Franck Montagny      Girondins de Bordeaux          + 0.826s
 3.  Tristan Gommendy     Galatasaray                    + 5.515s
 4.  Maria de Villota     Atletico de Madrid            + 29.875s
 5.  Max Wissel           FC Basel                      + 30.517s
 6.  Craig Dolby          Tottenham Hotspur             + 38.710s
 7.  Borja Garcia         Sporting Clube de Portugal    + 42.656s
 8.  Yelmer Buurman       AC Milan                      + 43.195s
 9.  Franck Perera        Flamengo                      + 43.887s
10.  Robert Doornbos      Corinthians                   + 44.486s
11.  Chris van der Drift  Olympiacos                    + 47.536s
12.  Davide Rigon         RSC Anderlecht                + 51.259s
13.  Marcos Martinez      Sevilla FC                  + 1m03.426s
14.  Julien Jousse        AS Roma                         + 1 lap
15.  John Martin          Beijing Guoan                  + 3 laps
16.  Narain Karthikeyan   PSV Eindhoven                  + 3 laps

Retirements:

     Sebastien Bourdais   Olympique Lyonnais          15 laps
     James Walker         Liverpool FC                1 laps