Having failed to finish and therefore score in the opening race of the weekend, Giedo van der Garde hit back in the second World Series by Renault encounter at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend, to claim his third victory from just four starts in 2008.
In a dominant performance, the championship leader came home more than seven seconds clear of second-placed Marco Bonanomi, who had outpaced the Dutchman in SuperPole the previous day, with Mikhail Aleshin completing the rostrum for Carlin Motorsport in front of the 75,000 spectators thronging the challenging Ardennes circuit.
With the starting line-up for race two determined by SuperPole, Bonanomi preceded van der Garde, Aleshin and Robert Wickens on the grid, and whilst the Italian retained his advantage at lights-out, Aleshin nipped past van der Garde into second. Wickens, for his part, ran wide in La Source, causing confusion further back and leading to Julien Jousse losing ground as the nose of the Frenchman's Tech 1 machine got damaged in the ensuing mêlée.
Behind the leading trio, race one runner-up Salvador Duran ran third, with fellow earlier podium finisher Guillaume Moreau just behind, whilst on the second lap van der Garde overtook Aleshin to snatch second place.
As Bonanomi and van der Garde – the latter coming out fighting with a new set of tyres which he had saved for the race – began to pull away, Aleshin back in third was coming under the attentions of Duran, Moreau and Miguel Molina. Van der Garde successfully made a move for the lead on lap four on the approach to the first chicane, and after the pit-stops held a three-second margin over his pursuers, still led by Bonanomi and Aleshin.
There was less luck, however, for fifth-placed Moreau, who picked up a drive-through penalty for not respecting priority in the pit-lane, consequently slipping back down to a frustrated 14th place at the close and promoting the following Molina up a position.
