News Archive »

Gabriele Tarquini took his second win of the season in an eventful race. Robert Huff came home second and Yvan Muller third. An incident in the first lap saw a massive crash which affected seven drivers (Menu, Monteiro, Ladygin, Engstler, Puyo, Bennani and Boardman).
Before this pile up, Sergio Hernández and Jaap van Lagen had crashed on the straight. Hernández hit the concrete wall sideways at high pace and was taken to the local hospital for x-rays on his left ankle but returned to the track with no treatment needed.
Local driver Tiago Monteiro crossed the line fourth followed by Larini, Gené and Rydell, while Farfus recovered after he received a drive through for causing the accident at the start and inherited eighth position and the pole for Race 2.

Man of the race
In the recent past Gabriele Tarquini hasn’t been able to turn his pole positions into race wins. However today he led the field all the way despite the race suspension and pressure from Huff who stayed close behind him. The experienced Italian driver defended fervently at the start, took control of the restart and his calm head enabled him to take the chequered flag as victor.

Key moment
At turn 10 on lap one Augusto Farfus missed his braking point and hit the rear left of Menu’s car. This sent Menu into the tyres and while Farfus swerved to recover he came into the path of Monteiro. Farfus continued but Monteiro was hit by Larini who too was trying to find a clear path. The pile-up behind resulted in the race being suspended and Farfus being given a drive-through penalty at the restart.

Withdrawals
A. Menu: race incident; J. Van Lagen: race incident; M. Bennani: race incident; S. Hernández: race incident.