Championship battle intensifies
With Goddard retiring for a third consecutive time, and teammate Rinneaho taking 2nd place behind Kederer, the gap between the Minardi drivers is now down to 4 points. Laad completed the podium in 3rd, the best result for him this year.
At the start Kederer lost first to Goddard, Utzer got to 3rd past Rinneaho. Not for long though, as the Finn soon retook his position. Diehl dropped to 6th, while Laad got up to 5th. Returnee Graham was up to 8th, and kept climbing until a gearbox failure in lap 7 ended his race early, while running in 6th. The top 3 started to pull away, closest follower was Laad, after a successful pass on Utzer. Keranen was the next retirement, a promising race ended when his gearbox failed, running in 10th. Once more than drama for Goddard, in lap 12 his engine blew up while leading the race. Black dropped out the same lap, with an engine failure as well. Kederer now lead ahead of Rinneaho and Laad, Heymans already up to 4th, having started 10 positions further down.
First round of stops came, top 3 remained unchanged. Utzer and Diehl both got past Heymans by staying out longer. Engberink and Martins followed in 7th and 8th. In lap 26 Heymans retired with a broken suspension. Martins dropped out of the points the same laps, being passed by Brugman and Buurlage.
Kederer was the first to come in for his final stops, handing the lead to Rinneaho for a couple of laps. Diehl tried to snatch past Laad with a late stop, but came out 1 second behind the Brit in 4th. Utzer also went for an early last stop, which didn't work out and dropped him to 5th. 6th to 8th were the 3 Dutchmen Engberink, Brugman and Buurlage. In lap 50 Engberink got past Utzer to 5th.
FIA Press Conference
@TTupsi: Gap's now down to 4 points between Mane and you, I guess you'll put up a hard fight in the remaining 2 races?
@Jimlaad43: This result must have come as a surprise, given that so far the car seemed to lack the race pace?
@Diehl: Only just missed out on the podium today, happy nonetheless?
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