Sixteen races down, seven different winners with a whole lot of controversy in between, the World Series by Renault 2006 comes to a close at Barcelona, Spain, the country of its spiritual home.
Indeed, the Formula Nissan World Series that preceded the Renault championship kicked off in Spain in 2002 and four years on it has grown to be one of the most exciting and competitive championships, with last year’s winner
Robert Kubica proving that it can attract all the right kind of attention in
Formula One.
With that in mind, the four drivers still with a realistic chance of championship glory will be going all out to claim the trophy as their own and almost certainly guarantee themselves a spot in either the GP2 Series, or even Formula One for next season.
With the annulment of results from the first round at Zolder having somewhat thrown a curve ball for several drivers, nine points separate first to fourth, with leader Andy Soucek three points up on Pastor Maldonado, while Borja Garcia and Alx Danielsson follow close behind. Alvaro Parente is also mathematically in with a chance but is 18 points adrift with 34 points available.
Although he is the championship leader, on current form Soucek actually appears to be the least likely to clinch the title following a rare run of disappointing form that has yielded not a single podium since the Nurburgring.
However, Soucek has been the master of consistency through the year and crucially he could not have chosen a better country from which to try and take a surprise championship win. Indeed, Soucek was the little known Spanish Formula Three winner when he arrived at Zolder but a win at Istanbul and another ten points finishes has seen him rise to prominence. He is also likely to draw confidence from the fact that he won in Barcelona on his last outing and was quickest in pre-season testing.
![Andy Soucek - Interwetten.Com [pic credit: Renault Sport media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/249805.jpg)
