Josef Newgarden finished the GP3 feature race from Monza in a solid seventh position,scoring two valuable championship points and securing a front row starting position forSunday’s race.

The talented, young American got a strong start off the line, but as the field headed downto the first corner, Newgarden was pushed to the outside. The cars arrived at the Rettifilochicane in a bottleneck formation, and Newgarden found himself with no space to turn intothe corner. The Carlin driver was forced across the kerbs, and though he was able to rejointhe race track immediately, he had dropped just outside the top 10.

Newgarden fought his way back up to sixth position, in an impressive display of speed,race craft and maturity. Towards the end of the race and struggling slightly with hisbrakes, Newgarden locked the left-front wheel and flat spotted the tyre. Frustratingly, heconceded sixth position to Mirko Bortolotti, who managed to edge past the #14 Carlin car,but Newgarden remained on the pace. Setting the second fastest lap of the race, andcoming across the line just 4.8 seconds behind the winner, Newgarden took a deservedseventh place finish.

Speaking about the race, the 19 year-old American said: “The start lost me quite a fewplaces, and really the rest of the race was all about recovering from that. It’s going to be atough race tomorrow, but hopefully I’ll be able to get a good start from the front. It wouldobviously be a great end to the year if we were able to convert the promise we’ve shownthroughout 2010.”