Marcos Martinez extended his championship lead with his third successive Formula Renault 3.5 victory in today's reverse grid race at Spa.
The Pons driver made a perfect start and grabbed the lead through a brave maneuver around the outside of pole-sitter Marco Barba at La Source.
While Barba fell down the order to an eventual seventh place, his Draco teammate Bertrand Baguette exploited his local knowledge to the full and charged up from eighth. Baguette had progressed up to second in just nine laps but, despite applying pressure to Martinez, he had to settle for second, 3.8 seconds adrift, as his tires withered.
"Our objective before the race was to finish on the podium," said Martinez, "But I did a very good start and the car was strong. The race was very hard throughout, as when I saw Baguette was behind I had to dig and push a little bit more. I was right on the limit over the last part of the race."
Miguel Molina finally won out in an intense scrap with Russian Daniil Move to complete the podium. Move had earned a warning flag through over-defensive driving on the run up to the Les Combes chicane, and was eventually passed by Molina after running wide onto the grass in the same place on lap 19.
With dirt on his tires, Move was unable to prevent Molina from out-braking him around the outside of the following, downhill, Rivage corner.
Move was demoted to fifth on the last corner of the last lap when Charles Pic dived boldly down the inside of the P1 Motorsport car at the Bus Stop chicane. However, the result still equals the Russian's best World Series finish, also at Spa, in 2008.
Oliver Turvey recovered from a difficult qualifying for Carlin Motorsport to finish sixth, just 0.4s behind Move.