Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo is back in the hunt for this year’s World Series by Renault 3.5 series after winning the first race of the weekend at Hokenheim.
The win closes the gap to series leader Mikhail Aleshin, to just two points.
currently fifth. Ricciardo was joined on the podium by ISR’s Esteban Guerrieri and Comtec’s Jon Lancaster.
The Red Bull F1 reserve driver, Ricciardo showed his intentions during qualifying, claiming his sixth pole position of the season. Esteban Guerrieri and Mikhail Aleshin also put on an impressive turn of speed, starting in second and third place respectively.
At the start, Ricciardo made the most of his pole position to take an immediate lead. Behind him Mikhail Aleshin tried to get the better of Esteban Guerrieri, but the Russian locked all four wheels, losing several places as a result of the manoeuvre and fall back to fifth place. In the pack there were ructions between Fortec Motorsport’s Sten Pentus, Junior Lotus Racing’s Nelson Panciatici, ISR’s Filip Salaquarda and P1 Motorsport’s Jan Charouz. Panciatici and Charouz were able to stay with the pack initially, while Salaquarda and Pentus returned to the pits, but were forced to retire, and the safety car entered the action while the marshals cleared the track.
At the restart Ricciardo made his second clean getaway of the day, holding on to his lead ahead of Guerrieri, Fortec Motorsport’s Jon Lancaster, Pons Racing’s Daniel Zampieri, and Mikhail Aleshin. In the pack Comtec Racing’s Stefano Coletti made an assault on International Draco Racing’s Nathanaël Berthon and snatched 7th place as his reward. Epsilon Euskadi’s Albert Costa also made up a place at the expense of KMP Racing’s Anton Nebylitskiy, the Spanish driver moving into ninth. One lap later he moved up another place to eighth, this time getting the better of Berthon.
At the head of the race Ricciardo tried to put some distance between himself and Guerrier, but the Argentinean stood his ground. However, he was forced to contend with Jon Lancaster’s ambitions, the British driver hanging on tight to his rear wing. The fight between Guerrieri and Lancaster played into the hands of Ricciardo. Who had nearly three seconds lead by the halfway mark.
In the second half of the race, aside from the incessant struggle between Guerrieri and Lancaster, all eyes were on Mikhail Aleshin. In fifth, the Russian was under attack from Comtec Racing’s Greg Mansell himself struggling to hold off teammate Stefano Coletti, followed closely by Albert Costa.
Esteban Guerrieri stepped up the pace toward the end leaving behind Jon Lancaster and making up lost ground on Ricciardo, but it was simply too late.
Ricciardo claimed his third win of the season to put himself just two points behind Mikhail Aleshin, who finished a disappointing fifth. The podium was completed by Esteban Guerrieri and Jon Lancaster, who enjoyed his best result of the season so far.
After the race Ricciardo said he was thrilled with the win: “After a two-month break, it’s nice to come back to a win. It’s a good start, now I need to go all out to win again tomorrow. To be honest, it wasn’t an easy drive, as I was never entirely happy with the car.”
The second race of the weekend will be held Sunday.

With: World Series by Renault Media Release