Pietro Fittipaldi returned to winning ways as he converted pole position into victory at Motorland Aragon on Sunday, but there was disappointment for his Lotus team-mate Rene Binder, who crashed out on the opening lap.
Fittipaldi has struggled at the starts on a few occasions in 2017, with the Brazilian having only converted three of his previous seven poles into victories, but there was no problem this time around as he got a superb start and was always in control of the race until the chequered flag.
The victory returned Fittipaldi to the top of the World Series Formula V8 3.5 Championship standings as Binder, who went into the weekend on top of the standings, crashed out after a collision with Yu Kanamaru at turn eight, which caused damage to the Lotus car and ended his race.
Konstantin Tereschenko ran second early on for Teo Martin Motorsport in his most impressive outing of the season so far, but the Russian was forced into retirement after smoke was seen coming out his car just before his mandatory pit stop, and despite being released back into the race by his mechanics, he stopped at turn four when the issue became terminal.
This promoted Alfonso Celis Jr into second, and the Fortec Motorsports driver closed down the gap on Fittipaldi up front, but the Mexican found that the Brazilian had pace in hand when he got around two seconds behind.
The final spot on the podium went to race one winner Egor Orudzhev, but the SMP Racing by AVF driver was 11.554 seconds down on Fittipaldi at the chequered flag, while Kanamaru survived his first lap contact with Binder to claim fourth for RP Motorsport.
Matevos Isaakyan ended the race in fifth for SMP Racing by AVF, with Roy Nissany finishing sixth for RP Motorsport, with the Israeli driver holding off the challenge of Diego Menchaca in the closing stages, while Damiano Fioravanti, Nelson Mason and Giuseppe Cipriani completed the points scorers.
Motorland Aragon Race 2 Result
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