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Silverstone Formula Renault 3.5: Sam Bird wins after late drama for Marco Sorensen

Sam Bird won the second Formula Renault 3.5 race of the weekend at Silverstone after race-long leader Marco Sorensen suffered a puncture on the penultimate lap

Sorensen and Bird had led the way from the start, when they moved to the front as polesitter Jules Bianchi made a terrible getaway.

Robin Frijns also passed the Frenchman, and the top four pulled away with a fast-starting Antonio Felix da Costa in tow.

Bird got the gap to the leader down to 0.6 seconds, but Sorensen was able to respond every time the gap went below one second to keep a safe cushion - despite not having active DRS all race.

Bird dropped back from Sorensen towards the end due to a misfire in fifth and sixth gears, and by lap 26 of 27 the gap was over three seconds.

Lotus driver Sorensen suddenly slowed in the first sector however, before pulling off at Luffield with a clear hole in his left rear tyre.

That left Bird to take the win for ISR, while da Costa took second after a dramatic fight with Bianchi and Frijns earlier in the race.

Frijns had been running third, but he slowed with a severely flatspotted left-front tyre that would eventually cost him nearly two seconds per lap. On lap 12 Bianchi dived down the inside into Copse, but as the two title contenders ran wide da Costa passed them both.

Frijns eventually dropped out of the points, but the late retirements of Sorensen and Mikhail Aleshin promoted the championship leader up to ninth.

Aleshin's retirement elevated a recovering Arthur Pic to fourth, after the Frenchman had dropped to 13th from sixth at the start. Alexander Rossi was another to charge through the pack, taking fifth after starting last.

Results - 27 laps:

Pos  Driver                  Team               Time/Gap
 1.  Sam Bird                ISR              47m16.896s
 2.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Arden Caterham     + 1.159s
 3.  Jules Bianchi           Tech 1             + 1.688s
 4.  Arthur Pic              DAMS              + 33.243s
 5.  Alexander Rossi         Arden Caterham    + 35.860s
 6.  Will Stevens            Carlin            + 39.663s
 7.  Nico Muller             Draco             + 43.514s
 8.  Nick Yelloly            Comtec            + 48.083s
 9.  Robin Frijns            Fortec            + 54.719s
10.  Vittorio Ghirelli       Comtec            + 58.774s
11.  Carlos Huertas          Fortec            + 58.929s
12.  Nikolay Martsenko       BVM Target        + 59.497s
13.  Jake Rosenzweig         ISR             + 1m01.640s
14.  Daniil Move             P1              + 1m04.069s
15.  Kevin Korjus            Tech 1          + 1m07.202s
16.  Andre Negrao            Draco           + 1m07.638s
17.  Mikhail Aleshin         RFR                 + 1 lap
18.  Lucas Foresti           DAMS                + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Marco Sorensen          Lotus               25 laps
     Nigel Melker            Lotus               19 laps
     Daniel Zampieri         BVM Target           8 laps
     Walter Grubmuller       P1                   6 laps
     Kevin Magnussen         Carlin               3 laps
     Zoel Amberg             Pons                 0 laps
     Yann Cunha              Pons                 0 laps
     Anton Nebylitskiy       RFR                  0 laps

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Previous article Silverstone Formula Renault 3.5: Jules Bianchi triumphs in three-way pole fight
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