Photo: Renault Sport Argentina

Facundo Ardusso wins the first feature race at Rosario

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Renault Sport’s Facundo Ardusso has taken victory in the first feature race of the weekend at Rosario.

After starting on pole position, he was followed onto the podium by Team Peugeot Total Argentina driver Mariano Werner, with Toyota’s Matías Rossi completing the top three.

At the start of the race, Ardusso was challenge by his Renault team-mate Leonel Pernía around the outside, but the pole-sitter managed to hold onto the lead, as Peugeot’s Facundo Chapur was now challenging for second.

RAM Racing Ford driver Damián Fineschi dropped down to sixth after receiving contact from Werner, who moved up to third.

As Werner was followed by Rossi and Chevrolet’s Agustín Canapino, Ardusso pulled out a very comfortable gap of 3.6 seconds over the first two laps.

Chapur spun off ran wide at Turn 1 on lap six and crashed into the wall, while Ignacio Julián also spun off violently in his Renault Fluence, but was able to return to the track.

The safety car came out as Ardusso had already opened more than an 11 second lead over of Werner, Rossi, Canapino, Fineschi and Chevrolet driver Bernardo Llaver.

On lap ten, the race restarted, and Ardusso quickly opened up a two second gap again over Werner and Rossi, with Canapino close behind.

After starting from 27th, Renault’s Emiliano Spataro had climbed up to 13th in 14 laps.

By lap 19, Werner was 2.9 seconds behind Ardusso, who was leading comfortably. Rossi was in third, holding back Canapino. The reigning champion was unable to do much to overtake the Toyota Corolla for the last podium place.

Ardusso won the race ahead of Werner and Rossi. Canapino finished in fourth ahead of Fineschi and Llaver. Matías Muñoz Marchesi (Team Peugeot Total Argentina) finished seventh, while team-mate Peugeot team-mate Fabián Yannantuoni, Matías Milla (Toyota Gazoo Racing Argentina) and José Manuel Urcera (Citroen Total Racing) rounded out the top ten.

Sunday will see qualifying for second feature race start at 9:05 ART, followed by the race at 12:20 ART.