Oliver Rowland secured his eighth victory of his championship-winning season in the opening race of the season finale at a damp Jerez on Saturday.
The race began behind the safety car due to the inclement conditions and due to the fact that none of the drivers had driven in the wet all weekend, with Tom Dillmann leading the pack to the green flag at the conclusion of the second lap.
Fortec Motorsports driver Rowland fought his way passed polesitter Dillmann in the early stages of the race and pulled away from the field to break the record for the number of victories in a Formula Renault 3.5 Series season.
Rowland eventually won by 10.879s from Russian Egor Orudzhev, with the Arden Motorsport driver following the Briton through past Dillmann into second on lap eight.
The following lap saw Dillmann pull into the pits with a rear puncture that saw him drop to the back of the field, and although he took a gamble to switch to slick tyres, he pulled back into the pit lane a few laps later to retire.
Behind the top two, Matthieu Vaxiviere secured the final podium position after the Lotus driver found a way passed the second Fortec Motorsports entry of Jazeman Jaafar, with Jaafar also dropping behind Nyck de Vries of DAMS and Tio Ellinas of Strakka Racing to fall to sixth.
Nicholas Latifi secured seventh for Arden Motorsport ahead of Andre Negrao of International Draco Racing on what could be the team’s final Formula Renault 3.5 Series weekend, while Roy Nissany claimed ninth on the final lap for Tech 1 Racing ahead of Yu Kanamaru of Pons Racing, who appeared to suffer some kind of mechanical issue with just two laps to go while running ahead of Latifi.
Jerez Race 1 Result
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