Roy Nissany jumped into the lead at the start and was never headed to take his first World Series Formula V8 3.5 series victory of the season as pole sitter Egor Orudzhev endured a nightmare race at the Circuito de Jerez.
Orudzhev was slow away at the start and banged wheels with Yu Kanamaru into the first corner, before retiring from the race on the fourth lap with a mechanical issue, the second consecutive race that the SMP Racing by AVF driver has failed to see the chequered flag.
His retirement brought out the safety car, closing up the field and removing the advantage that Nissany had built at the front of the field.
With Orudzhev out of the way, Pietro Fittipaldi was released to put pressure on Nissany at the front of the field, but the Lotus driver was unable to find a way to get ahead of the Israeli driver, finishing just 0.556 seconds behind at the chequered flag, while Matevos Isaakyan claimed the final spot on the podium, shadowing the front two for the whole race.
Championship leader Rene Binder finished 5.664 seconds behind race winner in the second Lotus, while there was a big gap to fifth placed Nelson Mason of Teo Martin Motorsport, who came out on top of a battle between himself, Alfonso Celis Jr and Kanamaru, with the trio all finishing within three-quarters of a second of each other.
For Kanamaru, it will be a case of what might have been, having been attacking Orudzhev for second place on the first lap before they banged wheels, with the Japanese racer dropping down to eighth as a result of the delay as he ran off track.
Konstantin Tereschenko was eighth for Teo Martin Motorsport ahead of Fortec Motorsports’ Diego Menchaca, while Il Barone Rampante’s Giuseppe Cipriani took the final point after Orudzhev’s retirement and Damiano Fioravanti’s failure to start following a mechanical issue on his RP Motorsport machine.
Circuito de Jerez Race 1 Result
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