
All eyes were on Nelson Piquet Jr. to see if he could make it two wins in a day, and the Brazilian certainly looked as if he could in the first half of the 50-minute race as he had a comfortable 1 second lead over the chasing group of Kyle Marcelli (Wayne Taylor Racing) and Giano Taurino.
The South African, who started fifth on the grid, had made a successful elbows-out dive-bomb move at the hairpin to slot into third on the opening lap, and he continued his terrific pace until the safety car came out with 35 minutes remaining as the marshals rebuilt the tyre wall following a crash for Ofir Levy (US RaceTronics).