Rene Binder won twice at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza last weekend, but found himself in the right place at the right time in both races, with the victories taking him to the top of the championship standings.
The Lotus driver shadowed race leader Roy Nissany for the whole of Saturday’s opening race, finishing second on the road but a penalty for the RP Motorsport driver for cutting the chicane and gaining an advantage was enough for the Austrian to inherit the win, his first in World Series Formula V8 3.5.
Binder praised his team for fixing his car after crashing during qualifying, but the Austrian was delighted to finally see the chequered flag first after so many podium finishes prior to the first win.
“Thank you to the whole team for having rebuilt my car after yesterday’s qualifying crash,” said Binder on Saturday. “At the start, Roy went straight and then I knew he was going to get a penalty so I simply controlled the race.
“Winning with this car on this track feels amazing, I’m delighted I could win my first race here.”
Binder was running inside the top four in Sunday’s second race when he was called into the pits just before the deployment of the safety car, which gave him a huge advantage once the others pitted, enabling him to drive conservatively to take the win by more than seven seconds, again from Nissany.
“It wasn’t easy at the beginning as I had used tyres,” admitted Binder on Sunday. “Then there was the call by the team when they saw the incident, and I re-joined the race with the safety-car and a comfortable gap.”