Unfortunately for those behind the Canadian, the corner is blind and, with the pack so tightly bunched, it was inevitable that the backmarkers would reach the incident before the yellow flags could be unfurled.Jan Heylen was among the first on the scene, the Belgian checking up hurriedly and catching Tristan Gommendy unawares. The Frenchman had nowhere to go but over the rear of Heylen's Conquest car - which has had to be rebuilt after each of its last two race outings - and went almost vertical before crashing back down to earth.
Gommendy's 'moment' saw the chasing Katherine Legge, Graham Rahal and Alex Figge all take avoiding action, with the British girl collecting the wall and then Tracy's car before her accident was compounded by a secondary impact from Figge. Rahal, meanwhile, spun without too much damage and was able to join Heylen in limping back to the pits. It was day done for the Belgian, but Rahal was able to continue after a cautionary check.
Aside from the eleven cars running ahead of the incident, one other escaped unscathed as Robert Doornbos only happened on the melee after being restarted by the safety crew on the grid. Had the Mont-Tremblant winner been running in position, he too would likely have been caught up in the wreck, which took fully seven laps to clear.
Pagenaud and Tagliani both pitted under the safety car but, while the Frenchman was able to wait for the pits to open before calling in for a new nose, his Canadian rival was forced to enter a closed pit in order to have his punctured rear replaced. The ensuing penalty dropped the RSports driver to tail of the field and really kick-started a frustrating afternoon for him.
The order approaching the restart had Servia heading Bourdais, Wilson, Bruno Junqueira, Power, Neel Jani, Dan Clarke, Pagenaud, Doornbos, Ryan Dalziel, Tagliani and Rahal, with a smattering of the alter runners having opted to top off their tanks in the realisation that further cautions would be likely.
