A fourth win in five races has launched the resurgent Alx Danielsson to within touching distance of the World Series by Renault title following a dominant lights-to-flag win in Barcelona, although it is Andy Soucek's second place that puts the Spaniard back in control ahead of a potentially mouth watering climax to the year in tomorrow's season finale.

With the championship order changing prolifically through the season, it is little surprise to find the standings have yet another new look to it after Danielsson and Soucek romped away from the field to finish a clear first and second, while Borja Garcia and Pastor Maldonado failed to score, the former having suffered a mechanical problem, the latter struggling to recover from a qualifying smash.

Indeed, it is a result that effectively takes Maldonado out of the championship reckoning, the Venezuelan having to start at the back of the grid following his crash in qualifying, the Draco Multiracing driver getting as high as eleventh by the finish, one place off the points. He is now 16 points off the championship lead with only 17 left available.

Instead, the championship is more likely to come down to Soucek, Danielsson and Garcia who go into the final race of the season on 101, 99 and 97 points respectively.

Starting from the position he is becoming quickly associated with, Danielsson made no mistake from the line, diving into the first corner in the lead, holding off Soucek, who got the jump on a somewhat slow starting Alvaro Parente, while Milos Pavlovic made the most of Garcia's fast but scrappy run into the first corner to take fourth ahead of the Spaniard.

Still, not all drivers made it through the first lap, with Alvaro Barba, Ryo Fukuda and Robbie Kerr all being forced to retire their cars.

Settling into a rather processional order over the first few laps, Danielsson eked out a two second gap on Soucek after six laps, who in turn was pulling away from Parente and Pavlovic, while Garcia was holding back Franck Perera, Sean McIntosh, Adrian Zaugg, up from eleventh on the grid, Christian Montanari and Mikhail Aleshin.

However, it was all change on lap seven when Garcia muscled his way past Pavlovic, the Serbian being pushed on the back foot and dropping several places down to tenth.

Worse was to come for the Draco Multiracing driver though when he lost control of his car at the end of the home straight as the field began lap eight, spinning out of control and clipping Celso Miguez Comtec car, with Pavlovic being launched into a series of barrel rolls. He walked away unharmed, albeit rather shocked.