Gutierrez had earlier taken 16th in his first Euroseries race, three places behind team-mate Tambay, after having made impressive progress from the back of the grid following a stall of his own.

“I too made a mistake when I released the clutch too early," the FBMW champion confessed, "This put me all the way down and my race was virtually over, a consequence of my lack of experience with the car. I have to learn a lot of new parameters, but I'm satisfied to have been able to make up several positions in both races. I will do my best to improve next time and I know I can count on a fabulous team.”

Tambay's determination, meanwhile, enabled him to make up more than ten places between the start of the first race and the finish of the second. The son of former Ferrari and Renault F1 legend Patrick even fought hard to make it into the points in race two but a racing incident eventually saw him forced into retirement.

“Qualifying started on a green and damp track and ended on a dry one, and this change had a big impact on my weekend," the young French driver commented, "We had to change the battery and it did not help me get to grips with things, but I was into the top ten with my first set of tyres. Then the track dried out, but I did not translate it into my driving. I took too long to react, everything happens so fast and, in the end, I did not have a good qualifying session. That's part of a learning phase.

"Race one gave me confidence because I won many duels and was adamant about securing a point the next day. I could have done so, but I made a mistake trying to overtake Wickens too quickly at the hairpin when he blocked a wheel. All in all, Hockenheim has been bad in terms of qualifying and that's something I have to improve quickly because the entire weekend depends on it. On the positive side, though, I had a good race pace and I won a lot of fights.”

“Hockenheim is never a good start for us and we had to cope with this tradition!" team boss Frédéric Vasseur concluded, "Having said that, we secured some big points and a podium, which is good.

"Jules' second race was just awesome and all our rookies showed they have great potential. We must not forget they're in the learning phase of a very competitive series and I'm sure they will all be serious points contenders when they put all the pieces together.”