Round 7 of the Championship took place at Istanbul Park, one of the few anti-clockwise circuits on the calendar, featuring 16 corners and a very notable quadruple apex turn.

The qualifying session saw Bruno Marques take his first pole position of the season. David Greco managed to repeat his result from last round and qualified again in 2nd. Mikko Puumalainen achieved his best result so far to qualify 3rd, and Bono Huis set the forth fastest time. Championship leader Rasmus Tali would start from 5th place, and Twister reserve driver Lukas Euler did a great job in Malezic’s absence, qualifying in 6th position.

To the race start and all of the front runners made it off the line cleanly. With everyone leaving each other plenty of room through turn 1, there were no accidents heading through the Turkish corkscrew. Mikko Puumalainen ran a little wide in turn 2, opening the door for Huis to move into 3rd. Ronny Hähnel then drove around the outside of Morand, and then out broke Euler to move up into 6th. Puumalainen dropped further back after out braking himself into turn 9.

Down the back straight, Marques was under pressure from Greco, but he managed to hold his ground. Huis jumped on the opportunity and got along side Greco for the final turn. But Greco failed to leave him enough room, and a nasty chain reaction occurred, resulting in a front wing loss for Tali, Hähnel, and a badly damaged car for David Greco.

However the fireworks were only just starting. With no front wing, Rasmus Tali could not turn into the first corner properly, and as he drove across the gravel, he lost control, sliding directly into the path of Euler and causing a heavy collision. As Tali’s stricken car remained on track, several other drivers were inevitably caught up in the accident, littering the track with debris. Although this resulted in only 2 DNFs, many more cars suffered significant damage.

Back at the front, Marques had Huis all over the back of his car, and with the aid of a slip stream, Huis easily passed Marques for the lead into turn 1. Morgan Morand was now in 3rd position in only his 3rd FSR appearance, but Puumalainen was immediately behind him. Fredrik Nilsson found himself in 5th place, with Casalins and Libeert close behind.

It soon became obvious that Marques was running much lower wings than Huis, as he tried several times to overtake down the back straight, but he was unable to out brake Huis into the tight hairpin. By contrast, Morand was running with very high downforce, and he soon lost out to both Puumalainen and Nilsson.

Eventually, Marques managed to make a move stick on Huis, but he only enjoyed the lead for one lap, when Huis passed Marques back into the hairpin, only to be passed yet again by Marques on the next lap. With the leading pair engaged in a fantastic fight, Puumalainen soon caught up and joined the action, and there was now a spectacular three way battle for first position. The lead seemed to be changing several times each lap, with the three drivers giving the spectators an amazing display of clean, professional driving.

Puumalainen then made an early pit stop on lap 13, two laps earlier than Huis and Marques. It paid off for Puumalainen - he emerged in front of the pair, but only by a 2 second gap.

Meanwhile in 4th place, Nilsson had managed to put some breathing room between himself and Morand through the pitstops, and Lee Morris leap frogged his way up into 6th position. With Samuel Libeert in 7th, Ash Racing had both their cars in a strong position for the first time this season.

Back at the front, Puumalainen was quickly caught and passed by Huis, and then by Marques. Unlike the first stint, Puumalainen was unable to stay in touch with the leading pair, slowly but surely falling back. While Huis held on to the lead position for 10 consecutive laps, Marques had no difficulty staying right behind him, and on lap 29, he got close enough to again pass into the hairpin, but, not surprisingly, Huis took the position back soon after, and the dual continued on.

Further behind Poniatowski and the one-stopping Mikkonen had managed to pass both the Ash Racing cars to move up into 6th and 7th.

The second set of stops made little change to the front pair, temporarily giving Marques the lead, but Huis was soon back in front. With 20 laps still to go, it must have seemed like the longest race ever for both drivers. Again Huis was maintaining the lead, but he could not create a gap back to Marques. With time running out, it seemed more and more likely that Huis was going to take the checkered flag. But on the final lap, Marques seemed to get a great run out of the chicane and onto the back straight. Sailing pass Huis, he moved to the inside, forcing Huis to try and pass around the outside of the hairpin. But somehow, Marques made the move stick when it counted, and keeping his cool, he ensured a clean exit out of the final turn.

Taking his 25th career victory in the grandest of styles, three-time World Champion Bruno Marques crossed the finish line in 1st place for the first time in over 12 months. Despite leading for 45 laps of the race, Bono Huis would have to settle for 2nd place. Huis and Marques swapped positions a staggering 34 times throughout the Grand Prix. Mikko Puumalainen achieved his first ever World Championship podium and a delighted Fredrik Nilsson crossed the line to take Roaldo Racing’s best result of the season so far. Jaakko Mikkonen’s incredible charge through the field from pitlane resulted in the Finn taking 5th place. Poniatowski finished in 6th after contact from Morand dropped him behind Mikkonen. Morand obligingly gave the position back on the finish line to end up in 7th place, scoring the first points for Simracing Zone.

Despite a non-result for Tali, he still maintains the lead in the championship standings with 88 points. However, there are now just 8 points separating the top four positions. Bono Huis is in 2nd place, Marques in 3rd, and Domagoj Malezic is in 4th. Jaakko Mikkonen is still in touch with the leaders, in 5th place on 59 points, just ahead of David Greco in 6th position.

With a total of 163 points, Twister have now gained the edge over Precision in the Constructors standings, but only by 7 points. Leoncavallo is now falling further behind in 3rd place, but they are still comfortably ahead of 4th position, now held by SB Motorsports, thanks to Puumalainen’s podium. GhostSpeed, Torrent Motorsports, and Faster Than Speed, all failed to score points this round.

The next race will be the Canadian Grand Prix. You can tune in at 5:25pm GMT on the 6th of June for the Multibc broadcast. To watch the action live go to www.formula-simracing.net, and follow the links to the live broadcast.