British driver Will Stevens finally won his first ever Formula Renault 3.5 series race at Monza in a race that saw pole sitter Carlos Sainz stall on the dummy grid, and a massive crash that eliminated both Marco Sorensen and Jazeman Jaafar that necessitated the use of the safety car at the beginning of the second lap.
After dominating the weekend up to then, DAMS driver Sainz was left behind on the grid as the formation lap began. He would eventually join the race but finished three laps down on race winner Stevens. Will Buller and Luca Ghiotto both had fairly slow starts, and it was fourth place on the grid Stevens of Strakka Racing that lead into the first turn, ahead of Zeta Corse’ Roberto Merhi and Arden Motorsport’s Pierre Gasly.
At the end of the first lap, a frightening crash between Tech 1 Racing’s Sorensen and ISR’s Jaafar brought out the safety car. Sorensen appeared to pull over into Jaafar, which launched the Danish driver into a roll that ended against the pit wall. Luckily both drivers walked away from the contact, but Sorensen will serve a five-place grid-drop penalty for the second race tomorrow.
Stevens comfortably pulled away from the field to win by almost seven seconds from Merhi, and almost twelve from Gasly. Buller finished fourth, passing Comtec Racing’s Nikolay Martsenko towards the end of the race, the Russian ending up fifth. Oliver Rowland enjoyed a better race after a dismal qualifying to finish sixth in the leading Fortec Motorsport machine. Team-mate Sergey Sirotkin was classified seventh, not before Marlon Stockinger was given a post-race 25-second penalty for overtaking behind the safety car, relegating him from seventh to fourteenth.
AV Formula driver Zoel Amberg finished eighth, ahead of rookie Meindert van Buuren in the leading Pons Racing car, while the final point went to Steven’s Strakka Racing team-mate Matias Lainé.
Tomorrow will see it all start again, with qualifying in the morning followed by the race in the afternoon. But for today, it was Will Stevens’ day.
Monza Race 1 Race Result
| POS | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME/Laps |
| 1 | Will Stevens | GBR | Strakka Racing | 42m23.207s |
| 2 | Roberto Merhi | ESP | Zeta Corse | +6.870s |
| 3 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | Arden Motorsport | +11.760s |
| 4 | Will Buller | GBR | Arden Motorsport | +17.994s |
| 5 | Nikolay Martsenko | RUS | Comtec Racing | +18.423s |
| 6 | Oliver Rowland | GBR | Fortec Motorsport | +25.440s |
| 7 | Sergey Sirotkin | RUS | Fortec Motorsport | +26.398s |
| 8 | Zoel Amberg | SWI | AVF | +31.784s |
| 9 | Meindert van Buuren | NED | Pons Racing | +32.391s |
| 10 | Matias Lainé | FIN | Strakka Racing | +32.599s |
| 11 | Pietro Fantin | BRZ | International Draco Racing | +35.580s |
| 12 | Oliver Webb | GBR | Pons Racing | +37.675s |
| 13 | Roman Mavlanov | RUS | Zeta Corse | +47.549s |
| 14 | Marlon Stockinger | PHI | Lotus | +50.943s |
| 15 | Norman Nato | FRA | DAMS | +1m06.012s |
| 16 | Luca Ghiotto | ITA | International Draco Racing | +1 Lap |
| 17 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | FRA | Lotus | +3 Laps |
| 18 | Carlos Sainz Jr | ESP | DAMS | +3 Laps |
| RET | Beitske Visser | NED | AVF | 19 Laps |
| RET | Marco Sorensen | DEN | Tech 1 Racing | 1 Lap |
| RET | Jazeman Jaafar | MAL | ISR | 1 Lap |
