Pre-race: Ma-Con Engineering driver Tony Schmidt fails to take part in the qualifying session as the result of a clutch failure during free practice. In line with championship regulations, he is not permitted to contest the race. His absence reduces the field to 17.
Lap 1: After securing locally-based team BCN’s first FIA Formula 3000 pole position, Enrico Toccacelo makes a sluggish start and drops behind points leader Vitantonio Liuzzi (Arden). Yannick Schroeder (Durango), Tomas Enge (Ma-con), Alan van der Merwe (Super Nova) and Raffaele Giammaria (AEZ) slot into third-sixth places. Seventh-fastest qualifier José Maria Lopez (CMS) runs wide at Turn Three and drops to the tail of the field.
Lap 4: Van der Merwe passes Enge. Jan Heylen (Astromega) spins at Turn 11 and Lopez runs wide in avoidance. Lopez continues in 16th; Heylen slips to the back of the field.
Lap 5: Giammaria passes Enge.
Lap 6: British F3 champion van der Merwe moves up to third at Schroeder’s expense.
Lap 8: Liuzzi leads by four seconds. Ninth-placed Jeff van Hooydonk (Coloni) makes the race’s first mandatory stop.
Lap 9: Giammaria muscles past Schroeder at the first chicane. Enge (sixth) and Mathias Lauda (CMS, 10th) pit for tyres.
Lap 11: Schroeder and Can Artam (Coloni, 14th) do likewise.
Lap 12: The stops shuffle Lopez up to 10th, but then he pits, too
Lap 13: Giammaria and Doornbos stop from fourth and fifth places.
Lap 14: Second-placed Toccacelo makes his compulsory stop.
Lap 16: Leader Liuzzi comes in.
Lap 17: Van der Merwe inherits first place for a lap before he, too, pits.
Lap 18: With the leaders all having stopped, Liuzzi resumes his place at the front from Toccacelo, van Hooydonk (who profits hugely from his early stop), van der Merwe, Enge, Schroeder, Giammaria and Lauda. Doornbos makes an unscheduled pit visit.
Lap 19: Schroeder and Enge spin off in unison at Turn Four and retire.
Lap 22: Van der Merwe closes to within half a second of van Hooydonk.
Lap 25: Giammaria slipstreams past van der Merwe on the main straight.
Lap 26: Giammaria tries to pass van Hooydonk, fails and loses a place to van der Merwe.
The latter then scrabbles past van Hooydonk, who runs wide at the last corner and drops back.
Lap 31: Giammaria nicks third off van der Merwe, who is now coming under huge pressure from team-mate Friesacher. Van der Merwe gets a warning flag: he pits for attention to his front wing, which was damaged during his battle with van Hooydonk. Doornbos comes in to retire.
Lap 33: Liuzzi wins by 1.6 seconds from Toccacelo, Giammaria, Friesacher, Esteban Guerreri (BCN), the recovered Lopez, Lauda and Rodrigo Ribeiro (Durango).