Atte Mustonen won his first race of the 2008 British F3 season with a dominant drive from the front row of the grid to the chequered flag in tricky driving conditions at Rockingham.
The Double R man finished 2.9 seconds ahead of Marcus Ericsson and six seconds ahead of Jaime Alguersuari. Andy Meyrick took his fifth win from seven starts in the National Class ahead of Salman Al Khalifa and Stefan Wilson.
As the cars left the pit lane to file onto the grid spots of rain were seen on the windows of the main building, but not enough to warrant starting the race on Avon wets. Alistair Jackson became the first casualty of the race when his Ultimate Mygale ground to a halt on the green flag lap after smoke was ssen coming from the rear of the car.
The remaining 26 cars lined up on the grid, with pole position holder Max Chilton at the head of the field, but as the lights went out it was Mustonen who got the better start to move into the lead at the first corner. Third placed Jaime Alguersuari also saw an opportunity to move ahead of Chilton and at the second corner the
Red Bull Dallara dived down the inside to move up a place and demote Chilton to third. While Chilton was going backwards, his Hitech team-mate Walter Grubmuller was moving up, moving ahead of Sam Abay for fourth at the Tarzan Hairpin but Abay fought back and regained the place at Deene on the next lap.
At the front Mustonen held a one second lead over Alguersuari, with Chilton another two seconds up the road. In the National Class Andy Meyrick was running in tentth overall, while Jay Bridger had slipped back on the opening lap behind Salman Al Khalifa and Steven Guerrero.
While Mustonen set about securing his lead Marcus Ericsson was on the move up the field passing Grubmuller and Abay on successive laps before getting on terms with Chilton for the final podium spot, which he duly took with a move down the inside of the Hitech Dallara at Deene at the halfway point of the race.
