Photo: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull’s Russian beats rival Norman Nato to win both races at the penultimate Formula Renault Alps round in Italy to retake the points lead ahead of the season finale…
Formula Renault Alps
Daniil Kvyat added two more wins to his 2012 tally in the penultimate race weekend of Formula Renault 2.0 Alps to move back ahead of season-long rival Norman Nato and into the standings lead.
Kvyat claimed pole for both races, winning the first by seven seconds. Nato took second, after getting ahead of Formula Abarth frontrunner Bruno Bonifacio who had qualified second for his Renault debut with the returning Prema squad. The third of the title contenders Paul-Loup Chatin also passed Bonifacio at the start, before the Brazilian spun out of fourth on lap four. Simone Iaquinta inherited P4 ahead of Patrick Kujala and Bonifacio’s teammate and fellow Abarth convert Luca Ghiotto who had started fourth. Stefan Wackerbauer was seventh ahead of Brazilian pairing Guilherme Silva and Victor Franzoni with William Vermont in tenth. Another debutant of note was French F4 graduate Egor Orudzhev with former Superleague champion Adrian Valles’ new team. The Russian qualified a highly impressive seventh but slipped back at the start before retiring.
Race two saw an identical podium, with Kvyat again winning from pole but this time only 1.7 seconds ahead of Nato after the Frenchman started from second on the grid. Chatin was again third while Bonifacio took a fine fourth. Kujala passed Ghiotto for fifth with Aurelien Panis enjoying a good run to seventh ahead of Franzoni, Alexander Albon and Iaquinta.
Kvyat has 201 points with Nato on 188 and Chatin still in mathematical contention on 157. The season concludes in Barcelona in two weeks’ time at the World Series by Renault season finale, where Kvyat will also be chasing title glory in the Eurocup.
Formula Renault BARC
The Formula Renault BARC season concluded on the British Touring Car support bill at Silverstone, with Scott Malvern claiming a second single-seater title in two years as he added to his dominant Formula Ford triumph from 2011.
Morris heads title rivals Webster and Malvern (Photo: Jakob Ebrey/Renault)
Fresh from being featured in the first episode of the ‘Britain’s Next F1 Star’ TV documentary on Thursday, Seb Morris claimed a double pole position and won both races. In the first, Josh Webster fended off title rival Malvern to finish second and narrow the gap between them to 11 points going into the finale. Michael Epps was fourth with Chris Middlehurst fifth, while Matthew Brabham finished his first race in Europe in sixth. The grandson of Jack and son of Le Mans winner Geoff won this year’s US F2000 title and got the chance to compete in Europe through the separate Team USA Scholarship scheme.
Malvern went from fourth to second at the start of the second race and finished just behind Morris after having a look to pass the 16-year-old at one stage. His result sealed him the title, while Webster finished down in 13th, just ahead of Brabham, after getting caught up in a collision between two other cars. Kieran Vernon completed the podium in third. With dropped scores taken into account, Malvern finished up on 368 points, Webster on 335 while Morris completed his maiden single-seater campaign in third on 274.
PaddockScout Driver of the Weekend: With equally dominant weekends, it’s a tie between Daniil Kvyat and Seb Morris.
Next weekend: Jake Dennis should secure the Formula Renault NEC title at the Spa season finale.