Sergio Perez has kept his championship aspirations alive with a dominant victory in this morning’s sprint race at Spa Francorchamps, claiming the lead on the first race and controlling his rivals through 3 restarts to take his fourth win of the season ahead of teammate Giedo van der Garde and Alvaro Parente.

The win was set up at the start when Perez made a good start to slot in behind polesitter Rodolfo Gonzalez into the first corner, picked up a good tow up the hill and slingshot past for a lead that he was never going to relinquish, with Oliver Turvey just behind the pair and ahead of the Charles Pic / Luca Filippi / van der Garde skirmish: the Italian tapped the back of his French rival at the bus stop and lost his front wing, giving the Dutchman a line through and prompting a safety car to allow the marshals to pick up the debris.

At the restart van der Garde, who had sliced by Pic just before the SC board was shown, was soon moving up another spot as he clinically disposed of Turvey at the end of the top straight, with Parente repeating the move one lap later. Unfortunately Christian Vietoris ran wide just behind them and lost the car over the kerbs, finding the wall and bringing the safety car out for another visit.

At the restart van der Garde made a big move inside Gonzalez at the first corner, but was too deep and couldn’t make it stick: he lined up right behind the Venezuelan with Parente on his tail, the Dutchman went left and the Portuguese driver to the right of Gonzalez as they blasted past, with van der Garde the last man to brake as he pinched second behind his teammate.

A couple of laps later and Pic was pushing hard to get by Turvey, but repeated Vietoris’ early mistake and made a heavy impact into the wall: the safety car had to stay out for a few laps as the marshals struggled to rebuild the tyre barriers and get the race restarted.

When the race finally went live Perez pushed hard to stay ahead of his teammate: the fastest lap of the race for Perez and a small mistake by van der Garde secured the win for the Mexican, who scored maximum points with Maldonado stopping on the first lap with a mechanical gremlin. Van der Garde made it a one-two for Addax, while Parente claimed his second podium on his first weekend back in the series. Gonzalez held on for a strong fourth position, with Turvey right behind him and Romain Grosjean cleaning up the final point of the day.

With Monza just days away the championship continues to swing back and forth between Maldonado and Perez: the Venezuelan leads with 87 points to 60, but with 40 points on offer for the final two races all eyes will be on the leading pair in qualifying next Friday

POS NO DRIVERS TEAMS LAPS TIME GAP INT. KPH BEST LAP

1 4 S. PEREZ Barwa Addax Team 18 41:51.924   180.504 1:57.014 17 2 3 G. VAN DER GARDE Barwa Addax Team 18 41:54.498 2.574  180.319 1:57.960 11 3 20 A. PARENTE Scuderia Coloni 18 41:55.507 3.583 1.009 180.247 1:57.706 17 4 17 R. GONZALEZ Arden International 18 41:56.750 4.826 1.243 180.158 1:58.117 18 5 9 O. TURVEY iSport International 18 41:58.984 7.060 2.234 179.998 1:58.727 17 6 12 R. GROSJEAN Dams 18 41:59.961 8.037 0.977 179.928 1:58.958 17 7 6 M. ERICSSON Super Nova Racing 18 42:00.664 8.740 0.703 179.878 1:59.049 17 8 10 D. VALSECCHI iSport International 18 42:01.396 9.472 0.732 179.826 1:58.839 11 9 25 A. ZAUGG Trident Racing 18 42:02.206 10.282 0.810 179.768 1:59.093 17 10 14 L. RAZIA Rapax 18 42:02.511 10.587 0.305 179.746 1:58.839 17 11 18 M. CHILTON Ocean Racing Technology 18 42:03.554 11.630 1.043 179.672 1:58.878 17 12 2 S. BIRD ART Grand Prix 18 42:04.095 12.171 0.541 179.633 1:58.122 6 13 26 M. HERCK DPR 18 42:04.477 12.553 0.382 179.606 1:58.783 17 14 27 F. CRESTANI DPR 18 42:05.193 13.269 0.716 179.555 1:58.894 18 NC 16 C. PIC Arden International 11 25:34.174 DNF  180.495 1:58.985 11 NC 21 V. ARABADZHIEV Scuderia Coloni 9 22:56.885 DNF  164.489 2:00.323 6 NC 11 J. D'AMBROSIO Dams 8 20:36.212 DNF  162.810 2:00.413 6 NC 8 C. VIETORIS Racing Engineering 6 13:55.031 DNF  180.639 1:59.999 5 NC 24 J. CECOTTO Trident Racing 5 11:57.199 DNF  175.161 2:00.436 5 NC 1 J. BIANCHI ART Grand Prix 4 9:55.981 DNF  168.480 2:04.733 2 NC 5 L. FILIPPI Super Nova Racing 2 5:16.012 DNF  158.165 3:06.289 2 NC 19 F. LEIMER Ocean Racing Technology 1 2:13.143 DNF  186.024   NC 15 P. MALDONADO Rapax 0  DNF