From the pole position Pizzitola raced to victory, but felt permanent pressure from Seb Morris (Fortec Motorsports). The Briton started the race from fourth on the grid and passed first Louis Déletraz and later Kevin Jörg (both Josef Kaufmann Racing) to finish second. Jörg took the last podium place.
Leader of the championship Barnicoat trailed long behind his main rival Déletraz, but half way through the race he was up in fourth position.
Then Déletraz fell behind Ukyo Sasahara (Euronova Racing) and Jake Hughes (ART Junior Team). With a seventh place finish he lost more points on Barnicoat.
The third main contender for the championship, the Dutch Steyn Schothorst (MP Manor Motorsport), fared even worse with an eleventh place after starting 18th.
Barnicoat is now 15 points ahead Déletraz. A further 16 points behind him follows Schothorst with only one point ahead of Morris. All four start with a similar starting position in race two on Saturday. In the final race on Sunday Ben Barnicoat starts, after a mistake in qualifying, only from the 15th place, which should keep the championship open until the end.
1 Andrea Pizzitola (Manor MP Motorsport): "I had a good race, but not such a good start. I had to protect myself from Kevin. But I held on and stayed in front. I pushed 100% all through the race and happy to be on the podium".
2 Seb Morris (Fortec Motorsports): "It is really nice to have four podiums in four races. I made some good moves in the first corner to put Andrea under pressure, but he did not crack. I will focus more on points and on finishing for the last two races this weekend."
3. Kevin Jorg (Josef Kaufmann Racing): "It was very difficult as I could only do one free practice before this race because of the Eurocup rules. So I had little experience for this race. I tried to attack Andrea but my race pace was just not quick enough. Seb passed me but I am still happy being on the podium again."
Live timing all races at: http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/live#live-timing
Second race on Saturday will be live on internet from 10.50 – 11.30 while the third race on Sunday is from 08.35 – 09.10 hrs.
English commentary can be heard on www.formularenault.tv while German commentary is at www.renault-sport.de/live.
