Unfortunately the start lights at this track were far from normal and caught several drivers out, including Fulghum, causing a few minor impacts and a shuffling of the grid.
Fulgum finished the lap way down in 14th and third place driver, who also got a poor start, Rick Stratton finished it in 7th. Meanwhile Nigel Metcalf has made the best start launching from 8th into first by Turn 1.
Unfortunately Metcalf spun in Turn 1 and a very long and carefull rejoin dropped him to 13th but his Lap 2 didn't start as badly as Ivor and Eric.
Ivor seemed to outbrake himself spun and collided with the unfortunate Fulghum and narrowly missed Corrado.
Eric would drive his relicant car back to the pits for a long repair and rejoin a lap down. Ivor also drove back to the pits bit in a comedy moment ended up in parc ferme dropped into a hole and retired.
Meanwhile Rouke looked serene out front a comfortable distance ahead of the very impressive Timo.
Behind the lead pair was the Arrows of Shazy under pressure from newcomer Leo Menegucci. On Lap 5 Leo was into the podium places when Ahmed strangely spun in turn 1 and dropped down to 10th.
Meanwhile the three Renaults, seemed to become a bit of a magnet for the action. First on lap 3 Benoit had collided with Costa damaging the latters car. The damage was increased on lap 9 when Hocq tried to squeeze his powerful Renault between two cars battling down the back straight.
The collision put Costa into the barriers while Hocq continued. Costa was able to continue but was faced with a ill handling car for the remainder of the race.
Aymeric unfortunately also managed to get into a couple of scrapes as the two RS12's started to struggle on home turf. Mike Perray in an older RS01 had been unable to start due to a technical issue rounding off a disaster.
Up front Leo was right with the second places car and on lap 11 he made his move taking second from Timo while Patrick Dobner had worked his way into fourth through the early laps carnage.
Further back John Wallace was embroiled in a battle with David Kadlcak while Jef Vannijlen and Corrado were embroiled in a huge battle. The latter pair swapped places on several occasions before Corrado spun first, then Jef followed suit a few laps later.
The race was proving to be extremely action packed with drivers making mistakes around the track, Ahmed dropped from 8th to 14th over 4 laps, DK spun away 5th and Aymeric dropped to 18th before retiring.
As the laps ticked down, something unusual was happening, Salvatore Tallini in his new Ferrari had been running reasonably well apart from an early spin and now sat a comfortable 6th, just ahead on the track of a monumental battle between Shazy Ahmed and Eric.
The latter two, however, were a lap down on the Ferrari but probably on average 1s/lap quicker as they struggled to fight each other without making contact with Tall's car.
Tallini had the additional problem that Corrado was closing him down at around 1s per lap and perhaps the inevitable happened in the last turn of the last lap when both Ahmed and Fulghum made accidental contact with the Ferrari who appeared to be struggling a little.
Rouke meanwhile cruised to an awsome maiden win after a faultless driver ahead of an excellent drive from Leo. Timo was perhaps the most impressive driver of the day dragging the relicant Ensign into the final podium position.
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