However, if Vettel, Parente, Garcia and Soucek could call Misano a success, then Pastor Maldonado could only label it an unmitigated disaster. Biting at the heels of Garcia going into the race, Maldonado looked to have done enough to claim the championship lead when he claimed the race one win from pole position. It was joy that was short-lived though, as a technical irregularity saw him disqualified. Trying to make up the time in the second race, Maldonado duly crashed in qualifying and eventually failed to finish, thus coming away from Italy with no points to show for his efforts.
Eric Salignon and James Rossiter also struggled as they saw their championship challenge begin to wilt, the duo being caught by Ben Hanley and Davide Valsecchi after the two podium winners made substantial gains on their rivals to both go eighth overall.
As has been the case at every race so far this season, the driver merry-go-round has been in full swing with Spa seeing two new drivers making their World Series debut. Tech 1 Racing has announced Marco Bonanomi as the replacement for Jerome d'Ambrosio, the Belgian's disappointing rookie season seeing him demoted to Italian F3000 for the time being.
The second new driver joining the line-up is Pasquale di Sabatino, another Italian who is making the leap from his national Formula Renault Championship to join Hanley at Cram.
With two Italians joining the fray, another one has left, with Enrico Toccacelo calling time on his lacklustre season in a bid to pursue other interests. His place at Eurointernational will therefore be taken by Milos Pavlovic, who side-steps from Cram.
![Alvaro Parente - Victory Engineering [pic credit: Renault Sport media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/241220.jpg)
