It meant Hartley overtook three cars ahead of him to move into the lead of the race and although he took the flag first on the road, he was then demoted to fourth place – giving the victory back to Alguesuari.
“This race turned out to be rather chaotic, having been dominated by Jaime in the early stages,” Carlin said. “Jaime made a perfect start and disappeared into the distance to build up at ten second lead by the time the safety car was called out. When the safety car boards were thrown towards the end of the race, unfortunately the safety car wasn't deployed and a fair bit of chaos ensued.
“On most of the circuit the yellow flag and safety car boards weren't shown and when Brendon saw a green flag he thought racing had resumed. He took the lead, but the safety car board was possibly out at the start/finish line and unfortunately we were unable to tell him to drop back to fourth as his radio was broken. The organisers have basically put the positions back to how they were pre-safety car, which is probably the fairest solution seeing as other drivers made the same mistake.
“Obviously we're very glad to have had such as strong start to the season, but a little disappointed as well, because there's more to come. We should have had a 1-2-3 in race one, and should have come away 1-2-3 in the championship. It's a bittersweet result really.”
