Mikhail Aleshin kept his head whilst carnage reigned around him on the way to his maiden World Series by Renault victory in the opening round of the championship at Monza.
An exciting race that saw eleven retirements and a number of safety car periods, Carlin Motorsport’s Aleshin followed up his first pole with a first win, but not without having to withstand intense pressure from Alvaro Parente, who proved his late signing to Tech 1 Racing was a shrewd move when he rose from sixth on the grid to just miss out on the win.
Marco Bonanomi rounded out the podium in his first race for RC Motorsport, the Italian delighting his home fans with a confident performance at the start of his first full season this year.
From here though, the results represent an intriguing race that saw several drivers feature well within the top ten only to throw it away at different opportunities – some more spectacularly than others…
The start was a typically crowded affair down into the first corner chicane, but it was Aleshin who held his nerve to lead the way, albeit ahead of Giedo van der Garde, who got a strong start from third – inherited when Julian Jousse was dropped to the back of the grid for ignoring yellow flags – to jump into second.
However, the Dutchman’s first World Series race would go downhill from there as he struggled to sustain the pace, eventually finishing some three laps down in the end.
Instead, Aleshin was leading well ahead of the equally fast starting Parente, who found his way past the tussling
Sebastian Vettel and Bonanomi in the melee. Meanwhile, Bertrand Baguette, Alvaro Barba and Guillaume Moreau followed closely behind.
Lap nine saw the first safety car emerge when Davide Valsecchi and Ricardo Risatti were involved in separate incidents. However, the restart lasted little more than a few seconds when on the run down to the first corner, Clivio Piccione was clipped and launched into a series of rolls. Although shocked, the Monegasque driver was otherwise unhurt.
![Mikhail Aleshin - Carlin Motorsport [pic credit: Renault Sport Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/310131.jpg)
