Oliver Rowland controlled the opening Formula Renault 3.5 Series race of the weekend at the Nurburgring from start-to-finish and open up his lead in the championship still further over Matthieu Vaxiviere, who could only finish fourth.
Rowland survived a mid-race safety car for two cars being stranded in the turn one gravel trap, but was untroubled throughout the race to take his sixth victory of 2015.
Nyck de Vries made a good start to move from fourth into second for DAMS, and was Rowland’s closest rival throughout the race, but despite the safety car intervention, was never in a place to make a move on the race leader.
The podium was completed by Rowland’s Fortec Motorsport team-mate Jazeman Jaafar, who took his first top three finish since the race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps back in May, with the Malaysian driver withstanding near-race-long pressure from Lotus driver Vaxiviere.
Tom Dillmann of Jagonya Ayam with Carlin and the slow-starting Tio Ellinas of Strakka Racing were fifth and sixth, and were never far away from the two drivers in front of them, while Pietro Fantin also held on to the battle in seventh for International Draco Racing.
Gustav Malja was eighth for Strakka Racing ahead of Egor Orudzhev of Arden Motorsport, while Alfonso Celis Jr took the final point on offer in tenth for AVF.
Yu Kanamaru had been running ninth on debut for Pons Racing ahead of the safety car period, and looked to be untroubled, but lost three positions after the safety car to drop out of the points into twelfth behind Marlon Stockinger.
The safety car was called because both Nicholas Latifi of Arden Motorsport and Bruno Bonifacio of International Draco Racing ended up in the gravel trap in separate single-car incidents on the eighth lap.
Dean Stoneman had already retired from the race due to an issue on his DAMS machine, while Roy Nissany was also a retiree for Tech 1 Racing.
Nurburgring Race 1 Result
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