Fauzy secures first Renault victory

The Malaysian's determination to convert pole position into the lead was evident in a huge brake lock-up at Turn 1, but the Fortec driver survived the moment and was not offered any serious challenge by the chasing Marco Barba over the remainder of the race.

The breakthrough victory is Fauzy's first in almost three years in the category, and returns him to the winners' circle for the first time since last year's opening A1GP event at Zandvoort.

"I was shocked by the result in qualifying as I thought we had to be higher," said Fauzy. "But we knew our car was really strong on old tyres, and I could control the race today which is pleasing.

"I was only pushing when I needed to, as I had quite a high brake temperature, and I didn't want to cook the brakes. So it was good for me when we had a safety car period and I could give the brakes a rest. Now we just need to work on our speed on new rubber, as well as our strategy for tomorrow. It was hot out there and could be even hotter tomorrow."

Draco's line-up completed the remaining podium positions. Barba took his first podium of the season in second, but the young Spaniard lost ground to Fauzy dramatically at a safety car restart on lap 18.

Bertrand Baguette claimed third to close the gap on championship leader Marcos Martinez to five points. The Belgian battled wheel-to-wheel with his team-mate into Turn 2 on the opening lap, but struggled thereafter with severe understeer. Baguette's dramas allowed James Walker to close within half a second at the flag.

"It is good for the championship to take points out of Marcos and James, but I was killing my front tyres in the race," said Baguette. "On the restart I had picked up a lot of rubber on my tyres and had massive understeer through the last two corners. It was really impossible to get close to Marco."

Jaime Alguersuari staged an excellent recovery after a disappointing qualifying session to leap from ninth on the grid to a solid fifth position. The British Formula 3 champion profited from a stunning opening lap in which he avoided a confused first corner incident that ended third place starter Brendon Hartley's hopes for the afternoon.

Jon Lancaster picked up two points for ninth on his series debut with Comtec, but series returnee Michael Herck had a short race. The GP2 racer was hit at high speed away from the grid, and a hefty impact with the pit wall forced him into retirement.

Pos  Driver                Team             Time
 1.  Fairuz Fauzy          Fortec           46m28.278s
 2.  Marco Barba           Draco             +  1.969s
 3.  Bertrand Baguette     Draco             +  3.382s
 4.  James Walker          P1                +  3.892s
 5.  Jaime Alguersuari     Carlin            +  5.728s
 6.  Marcos Martinez       Pons              +  8.116s
 7.  Miguel Molina         Ultimate          + 10.085s
 8.  Oliver Turvey         Carlin            + 10.582s
 9.  Jon Lancaster         Comtec            + 11.138s
10.  Adrian Zaugg          Interwetten       + 16.830s
11.  Charles Pic           Tech 1            + 17.151s
12.  Daniil Move           P1                + 19.265s
13.  Chris van der Drift   Epsilon Euskadi   + 19.676s
14.  Pasquale di Sabatino  RC                + 20.246s
15.  Greg Mansell          Ultimate          + 20.791s
16.  Adrian Valles         Epsilon Euskadi   + 21.472s
17.  Brendon Hartley       Tech 1            + 21.651s
18.  Sten Pentus           Fortec            + 27.428s
19.  Anton Nebylitskiy     SG                + 28.595s
20.  John Martin           Comtec            + 29.600s
21.  Edoardo Mortara       SG                + 30.968s
22.  Julian Leal           Prema             + 35.999s

Retirements:

     Federico Leo          Pons             23 laps
     Filip Salaquarda      Prema            14 laps
     Mihai Marinescu       RC                7 laps
     Michael Herck         Interwetten       0 laps