Aragon FR3.5: Huertas triumphs in wet second race
|By Glenn Freeman||Sunday, April 28th 2013, 13:23 GMT|
Carlos Huertas took a dominant victory in horrendous weather conditions in the second Formula Renault 3.5 race at Aragon.
The Colombian, who was a surprise front-row starter after a heavily disrupted qualifying session in the morning, inherited the lead when pole man Norman Nato went off at the first corner after the safety car pulled in at the start of lap four.
From there Huertas took advantage of the clear track ahead of him cruised away from the field, quickly building a lead over Sergey Sirotkin and Stoffel Vandoorne.
When Vandoorne attacked Sirotkin at the final hairpin on lap 7 - a move that eventually failed - it cost the pair enough time to allow Huertas to stretch his lead to over 10 seconds.
From there he was able to control the race, while Vandoorne dropped back from Sirotkin to give the ISR driver a comfortable second place.
The lead group lost its first member before the cars were even released from behind the safety car, as fourth place starter Arthur Pic broke down on the exit of Turn 1 on lap two.
Behind the top three, Will Stevens fended off Nico Muller to the end for fourth, while Nigel Melker snatched sixth place from Antonio Felix da Costa on the penultimate lap.
Championship leader Kevin Magnussen recovered from 22nd on the grid to take two points in ninth.
Results - 14 laps: Pos Driver Team Time/Gap 1. Carlos Huertas Carlin 33m19.005s 2. Sergey Sirotkin ISR + 11.921s 3. Stoffel Vandoorne Fortec + 16.429s 4. Will Stevens P1 + 24.691s 5. Nico Muller Draco + 26.826s 6. Nigel Melker Tech 1 + 36.735s 7. Antonio F. da Costa Arden Caterham + 42.074s 8. Andre Negrao Draco + 44.125s 9. Kevin Magnussen DAMS + 44.988s 10. Marco Sorensen Lotus + 55.215s 11. Mikhail Aleshin Tech 1 + 1m00.192s 12. Jazeman Jaafar Carlin + 1m00.787s 13. Yann Cunha AV Formula + 1m17.038s 14. Matias Laine P1 + 1m22.401s 15. Daniil Move Comtec + 1m34.292s 16. Lucas Foresti Comtec + 1m36.191s 17. Oliver Webb Fortec + 1m44.026s 18. Pietro Fantin Arden Caterham + 1m45.955s 19. Zoel Amberg Pons + 1m48.671s 20. Norman Nato DAMS + 1m55.868s 21. N.Martsenko Pons + 2m10.822s 22. Matheo Tuscher Zeta Corse + 1 lap Retirements: Christopher Zanella ISR 9 laps Mihai Marinescu Zeta Corse 5 laps Arthur Pic AV Formula 1 laps M.Stöckinger Lotus 0 laps