FR3.5: Sainz takes commanding Monza win

Carlos Sainz Jr. took a dominant first career Formula Renault 3.5 victory in the second race of the season at Monza. The Spaniard, who missed out on starting from pole position in race one when an electrical fault developed before the warm-up lap, led from start to finish on Sunday.

Sainz made a clean getaway to leave fellow front row starter Marlon Stockinger behind at the off, and from there he set about building a lead that was more than 10 seconds by the checkered flag.

Stockinger spent the entire race keeping Sauber F1 reserve Sergey Sirotkin at bay after the Russian had picked his way through some slow starters. Sirotkin was never quite close enough to mount an attack for second, and by the end of the race Stockinger had stretched out a small margin of safety to secure his second position.

Formula Renault 2.0 graduate Luca Ghiotto took a comfortable fourth ahead of Pierre Gasly, who survived a battle with Jazeman Jaafar to complete the top five.

Jaafar briefly got ahead of the Red Bull junior early on, but he had to concede the position as he had gained ground by cutting the second chicane when trying to pass Gasly. After that the Malaysian was never quite able to mount another challenge, and in the closing stages he lost out to a charging Nikolay Martsenko for sixth place.

Further back, the points positions were completed by Oliver Rowland, who recovered to 10th place having started from the pitlane when his car failed to get away for the formation lap.

Originally on Autosport.com