Scott Malvern made most of his pole position and took a start-to-finish victory in the first race of the Formula Ford EuroCup at Zolder. Behind him his Jamun Racing team-mates, Dutchman Jeroen Slaghekke and Australian Nick McBride, fought a hard battle for the final podium places. Finland's Anti Buri, driving a GEVA Mygale, was disappointed with his fourth place but was still top finisher for the Dutch championship.With this weekend counting both for the EuroCup and for the Dutch Championship, there were 25 cars on the grid at Belgium's former Grand Prix venue. With the track notorious for being a difficult circuit on which to pass, Malvern was very happy with his victory, but had to admit that he was pleased to see the chequered flag after 12 laps. "Slaghekke was certainly faster than me in the last part of the race and if the race had been longer, I might have had difficulty keeping him at bay," said the leader of the Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain.The Dutchman confirmed Malvern's comments: "I needed a couple more laps, but passing Scott would have been difficult on this track. I was able to close up on to his gearbox a few times, but passing a back marker in final part of the race ruined my chances to challenge for the win."Australian Nick McBride was disappointed with finishing third after an excellent qualifying in his Jamun Mygale to start from the front row. He was able to hold position in the early part of the race and to keep Slaghekke at bay, but an unexpected move by Jeroen in turn one caught him off guard. "I didn't see that one coming and after he passed me we had to work together to keep up with Scott. I was waiting for one of them to make a mistake, but neither did; anyway I'm happy with this great result for the team".Less happy was the winner of one of last weekend's Spa-Francorchamps races, Australia's Geoff Uhrhane in the JTR Mygale. His weekend started well with fifth on the grid, but a broken gearbox casing robbed him of a potential podium finish. "We certainly had the pace to keep up with the Jamun cars, I'm sure a podium finish was possible, but after six laps I lost the gearbox. We will try again tomorrow."Another driver to qualify well but who had less luck in the race was Matthew Parry in the Fluid Motorsport Van Diemen. The new LA11, which he gave its debut at Spa last week, again showed great pace; a strong sixth on the grid showed the potential of the pairing. But a poor start saw the Air Asia/Team Lotus development driver drop down the order, where he battled hard with Cliff Dempsey Racing's American driver Neil Alberico in the Ray and Jersey's Dan de Zille in his JTR/Mygale. A flying stone on the last lap damaged the Van Diemen's gearbox and Parry joined the list of non-finishers.Buri, in the GEVA Racing Mygale, was the fastest of the Dutch Championship runners and took fourth overall after a race-long battle with series leader Joey van Splunteren driving a Provily Racing Mygale. Local ace John Svensson in his self-run Van Diemen was 14th after being spun around at the start.The second race, which will decide the outcome of the Formula Ford EuroCup title for Zolder, is on Sunday morning.Provisional resultsFormula Ford EuroCup, race 1Zolder, Belgium 16/7/201112 laps / 29.83 miles1 Scott Malvern GBR/Ilford Jamun Mygale 19m 21.594s / 92.43mph2 Jeroen Slaghekke NED Jamun Mygale +0.973s3 Nick McBride AUS Jamun Mygale +1.666s4 Antti Buri FIN Geva Mygale +2.762s5 Joey van Splunteren NED Provily Mygale +21.122s6 Spike Goddard AUS Jamun Mygale +21.235sFastest lap: Buri 1m 35.358s / 93.83mph Establishes Record