Stockinger on the podium for first race of 2014 season

Lotus Junior Team driver Marlon Stockinger drove a consistent race and placed second on the podium for Race 2 of the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 Series opener in Monza, Italy last Sunday just behind Carlos Sainz Jr. of the Red Bull Junior Team.

The Filipino-Swiss Stockinger fought hard to come back from a restricted first race which saw former teammate Marco Sorensen flipping his car on the main straight on the opening lap. The safety car stayed until lap 5 preventing any overtaking manuevers. He only managed to finish 15th coming from 13th in qualifying. Sorensen was declared safe from danger.

Fighting hard to get a good spot for the 2nd race, Stockinger managed to get on the second spot to share the front row with polesitter Sainz. He lapped 7/10s of a second from the pole time. In the race, it was Fortec Motorsports' Sergey Sirotkin who challenged the Filipino-Swiss all throughout the race. But the determined Stockinger kept the Russian at bay and finished 10 seconds behind Sainz for P2.

"The team did a really great job because I was really on pace all weekend. We knew we were competitive and we finally demonstrated all the work we did during winter testing. Congrats to the whole team for their support," said Marlon Stockinger.

Results:                                                                              

Pos  Driver               Team             Time/Gap

 1.  Carlos Sainz Jr      DAMS           43m10.774s       

 2.  Marlon Stockinger    Lotus            +10.835s

 3.  Sergey Sirotkin      Fortec           +12.524s

 4.  Luca Ghiotto         Draco            +19.137s

 5.  Pierre Gasly         Arden            +20.178s

 6.  Jazeman Jaafar       ISR              +28.477s

 7.  Nikolay Martsenko    Comtec Racing    +30.014s

 8.  Pietro Fantin        Draco            +33.845s

 9.  Roberto Merhi        Zeta Corse       +36.393s

10.  Oliver Rowland       Fortec           +36.959s