Soucek celebrates title with Imola win

His third place finish was enough to guarantee him the crown on Saturday and, now free of pressure, he stormed to a dominant victory on Sunday.

Soucek only started third on the grid but made a fantastic start to take the lead in a matter of yards, while polesitter Robert Wickens was slow away.

Mikhail Aleshin made a great start to jump from sixth to fourth and then drove around the outside of Wickens - his main rival for the series runner-up spot - into Tamburello. But his joy was short lived as he spun on the way out of the chicane and was collected by Jens Hoing, who was unsighted at the back of the pack.

The crash brought out the safety car, which bunched up the field as it approached Tamburello at the end of the first lap. Pietro Gandolfi failed to slow down, hit the brakes late and speared into Natacha Gachnang, taking both out of the race.

Mirko Bortolotti's engine gave up just as the safety car peeled off to restart the race and the Italian crawled through Tamburello with oil spewing out of the back of his car. Alex Brundle, Julien Jousse and Jack Clarke all flew off the road as they hit the oil and only Clarke escaped the gravel bed.

Kazim Vasiliauskas slowed and retired from fifth place exiting Tosa on the same lap with what appeared to be another blown engine.

Once the race settled down, Soucek pulled steadily away from Wickens, with Milos Pavlovic a lonely third.

"The start was a bit dangerous because I was in middle of both Red Bull cars, but they opened the way and I could squeeze inside," said Soucek. "After that I just pushed really hard and tried to improve my times.

"It's another victory, so that's five in total now - I can't really expect more."

Tobias Hegewald and Carlos Iaconelli had equally quiet runs to fourth and fifth places respectively, while Jolyon Palmer scored his first points of the season in sixth.

Jason Moore earned two points for seventh with a great pass on German Sanchez on the brakes at Tamburello. The Spaniard rounded out the points finishers in eighth, with Nicola de Marco and Philipp Eng completing the top 10 - the latter after tapping Sebastian Hohenthal out of the place at Tosa on the final lap.

Pos  Driver                 Time/Gap
 1.  Andy Soucek          30m12.572s
 2.  Robert Wickens         + 2.407s
 3.  Milos Pavlovic         + 7.912s
 4.  Tobias Hegewald       + 16.389s
 5.  Carlos Iaconelli      + 20.163s
 6.  Jolyon Palmer         + 23.510s
 7.  Jason Moore           + 25.495s
 8.  German Sanchez        + 27.214s
 9.  Nicola de Marco       + 27.288s
10.  Philipp Eng           + 28.071s
11.  Ollie Hancock         + 30.220s
12.  Sebastian Hohenthal   + 33.234s
13.  Tom Gladdis           + 33.872s
14.  Jack Clarke           + 42.134s
15.  Henri Karjalainen     + 43.202s

Retirements:

     Mirko Bortolotti     5 laps
     Kazim Vasiliauskas   5 laps
     Alex Brundle         5 laps
     Julien Jousse        5 laps
     Edoardo Piscopo      2 laps
     Natacha Gachnang     1 lap
     Pietro Gandolfi      1 lap
     Armaan Ebrahim       0 laps
     Mikhail Aleshin      0 laps
     Jens Höing           0 laps