Magnussen dominates first race at Motorland Aragon

Kevin Magnussen converted his dominance over the rest of the Formula Renault 3.5 field at Motorland Aragon this weekend into a 20-second victory in Saturday’s race.

The Danish driver, who topped all three testing sessions on Thursday and Friday and then claimed pole this morning, kept the lead at the start of the race and quickly built himself a cushion. He held a five second lead after five laps and had extended that to nearly 20 by the end of the 27-lap race.

Arthur Pic made a flying start to move from fifth on the grid into second place. While unable to hold onto Magnussen, he looked comfortable in that position until the closing stages, when he was chased down by a flying Will Stevens.

Stevens had made his way through from 11th on the grid, holding ninth place in the early stages before charging his way up the order. He took third from Sergey Sirotkin on lap 19 and then stole second from Pic exiting turn one on the very last lap. His performance gave the P1 team a podium finish in their first race under Strakka ownership. He was however asked to visit the stewards post-race together with Nico Muller, who was eliminated

Behind Pic, Sirotkin finished in fourth ahead of Norman Nato. The French rookie had got ahead of the Russian at the end of the back straight but ran wide to lose the place again. He then made an error of his own that let Stevens through.

Nigel Melker made impressive progress to finish sixth after starting 15th. The Dutchman was up to eighth on the first lap before passing Stoffel Vandoorne, Marco Sorensen and Christopher Zanella to get up to fifth before succumbing to Stevens. After starting third, Zanella held fourth until lap seven, after which he lost three places in two laps. He did manage to keep Vandoorne and Sorensen at bay for the rest of the race, the latter having dropped from fifth to ninth on lap seven. Mikhail Aleshin completed the points after passing compatriot Daniil Move on lap four.

Forced to start from the back after running out of fuel in qualifying, Antonio Felix da Costa got as far as 13th place by the flag.

Race results

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