cars were damaged beyond repair, reducing the field to 23 drivers. The driver's major issue in the middle of the grid was that they would be easily overtaken by faster vehicles, which prompted Lei to allow them past so he would not interfere. At the start, Sato made a good getaway and withstood heavy pressure from Montin to retain his lead on the run to the first corner despite a glance with the barrier lining the circuit. Wirdheim had multiple cars beside him and he was passed by Tréluyer for second. Kovalainen could not accelerate off his grid slot and fell three-quarters of a lap adrift of Sato. While Sato pushed hard to establish his lead of 1.4 seconds by the end of lap one, Wirdheim put Tréluyer under pressure in the battle for second. Further back in the field, Bobbi was overtaken by Ide and Ho lost several positions to all drivers behind him bar Kovalainen and Lee. On lap two, Montin removed his rear-left wheel in a collision with the wall. He drove slowly to the pit lane for a replacement wheel and the subsequent loss of time put him out of contention for a top ten overall finish. Sato's lead was lowered slightly as Tréluyer pulled away from Wirdheim in third. Sato responded by increasing his lead by a small margin the following lap and did the same whenever it appeared that Tréluyer would close up to him. Hayes endeavoured to make up for the first leg by eclipsing Narain Karthikeyan's race track lap record of the Guia Circuit in the 2000 edition at 2 minutes, 12.921 seconds. He caught Kurosawa and overtook him with no hindrance and then focused on catching Hackett whom he passed soon after. Hackett lost further positions to Kaneishi and de Oliviera by the conclusion of the seventh lap as they sought to recover lost ground from not restarting the first leg. Monteiro led a battle over fifth that included Priaulx, Kaffer and Ide, who blocked Monteiro from passing him and Priaulx overtook Monteiro. That meant Kaffer challenged Monteiro for sixth as Ide lost fifth to Priaulx on lap 12. Doing this unsettled Ide whom was overtaken by Monteiro and Kaffer and fell to eighth soon after because he delayed them for four laps. Ahead of the quartet, Matsuura was distanced by Wirdheim who began to challenge Tréluyer in slower traffic. That