Dirani scores second win at Croft

Danilo Dirani completed his domination of the weekend at Croft with victory in both rounds from pole position, including leading every lap and setting fastest lap, to sensationally move up from ninth place to joint first place in the championship. He benefited from another first lap collision, again involving rival James Rossiter, and was never challenged on the way to his second comfortable win of the day.

Dirani made another great start from pole position in his Carlin Motorsport car but behind him there was drama as Fortec's James Rossiter and Alan Docking Racing's Will Power collided at the first corner sending both cars out of the race. Lucas Di Grassi, Clivio Piccione and Adam Carroll, who started fourth, fifth and sixth respectively were all held up as they avoided the Rossiter-Power collision and this allowed Menu F3 Motorsport driver Will Davison, who started in eighth, to nip past all of them down the inside and emerge from the first lap in third place.

The Safety Car was brought out for two laps to remove the two stranded cars from the circuit, during which time Nelson Piquet retired from tenth place with a technical problem, and the race restarted on lap four. Dirani tried to build up a lead but second-placed Viso kept him firmly in his sights initially. Once Dirani's car had warmed up however he start pulling out up to half a second per lap.

Adam Carroll was running in sixth place when his P1 Motorsport car suffered a technical problem and he was forced to retire from the race and he was soon joined in retirement by second-placed Viso who spun off the circuit by himself at the chicane on lap eight. Viso's retirement moved Davison up to second with Di Grassi a couple of seconds further back in third.

At the halfway point Dirani held a four second lead and he eased his pace over the static and incident-free closing laps to take the win 3.8 seconds ahead of Davison and 5.6 seconds ahead of Di Grassi. The win moved Dirani into joint first place in the championship with Nelson Piquet on 52 points, ahead of James Rossiter in third on 50, Will Davison fourth on 40 and Clivio Piccione fifth on 38.

Dirani wins race one at Croft