This article documents a current sports-related event. Information may change as the event progresses.

The 2008 World Series by Renault season began on April 26 in Monza, Italy and is due to finish on October 19 in Barcelona, Spain after 17 races.

Technical Regulation Changes

After a three-year cycle, the current World Series chassis will be replaced by a brand new car built by Italian racecar constructor Dallara. The new car will feature flex-fuel technology and can be powered by either premium unleaded petrol or E85 bioethanol, which is a first for this level of motorsport in Europe. The Renault V6 engine, prepared by French company Solution F, will also see its power increased from 425 to 500 horsepower.

The car will also feature a new carbon bodyshell, as well as a new shaped front wing, hollowed sidepods and multiple side deflectors designed to improve aerodynamic performance. However, several areas of the car, including the gearbox, rear suspension and carbon brakes, will remain the same in order to keep costs under control ^[1].

The new car made its first public appearance on September 21 at the Magny-Cours round of the 2007 season ^[2], with development driver Andy Soucek demonstrating the car at the final round of the series in Barcelona ^[3].

Sporting Regulation Changes

In a change from recent years, only 26 cars (thirteen two-car teams) will be allowed into the 2008 championship. The World Series by Renault organising committee announced twelve of the thirteen teams on October 5, 2007 ^[4], with newcomers Ultimate Signature confirmed as the final entrant on October 12, 2007 ^[5].

The thirteen teams confirmed for the 2008 season are:

• Carlin Motorsport
• Comtec Racing
• Epsilon Euskadi
• Fortec Motorsport
• KTR
• International Draco Racing
• Interwetten.com Racing
• P1 Motorsport
• Pons Racing
• Prema Powerteam
• RC Motorsport
• Tech 1 Racing
• Ultimate Signature

The 2008 season will also see the introduction of a new qualifying system to the World Series ^[6].

• The 26 cars will be split into two equal groups, with each having a 20-minute session

• The Top 6 drivers in each group (12 in total) will go forward to a 15-minute 'Super Pole' session

• The grid for Race one is decided by reversing the finishing order of the Top 8 drivers in Super Pole. They are followed by the last four in Super Pole (in finishing order) and the remaining 14 drivers in the order they finished qualifying

• For Race two, the Top 8 drivers from Super Pole line up in the order they finished the session, with the rest of the field decided by the finishing order of Race one

Pre-Season Testing Results

Date	Location	Circuit	Fastest Driver	Team	Fastest Lap
2007
November 6	Le Castellet, France	Circuit Paul Ricard	Charles Pic	Tech 1 Racing	1:16.156 [7]
November 7			Marco Bonanomi	GD Racing	1:15.649 [8]
November 8			Michael Herck	Prema Powerteam	1:15.570 [9]
November 28	Valencia, Spain	Circuit de Valencia	Giedo van der Garde	Cram Competition	1:22.052 [10]
November 29			Marco Bonanomi	Red Devil Team Comtec	1:21.857 [11]
November 30			Charles Pic	Tech 1 Racing	1:21.391 [12]
2008
March 5	Valencia, Spain	Circuit de Valencia	Bertrand Baguette	International DracoRacing	1:25.569 [13]
March 6			Borja García	RC Motorsport	1:22.031 [14]
April 8	Barcelona, Spain	Circuit de Catalunya	Marco Bonanomi	Red Devil Team Comtec	1:33.478 [15]
April 9			Fabio Carbone	Ultimate Signature	1:33.500 [16]
April 10			Robert Wickens	Carlin Motorsport	1:32.971 [17]

2008 Driver Lineup

R = Series rookie for 2008

Team	Car #	Driver	Status
Tech 1 Racing	1	Julien Jousse [18]
	2	Charles Pic [19]	R
International DracoRacing	3	Bertrand Baguette [20]
	4	Marco Barba [21]
Carlin Motorsport	5	Mikhail Aleshin [22]
	6	Robert Wickens [23]
Epsilon Euskadi	7	Mario Romancini [24]	R
	8	Alexandre Marsoin [25]	R
Prema Powerteam	9	Miguel Molina [26]
	10	Álvaro Barba [27]
RC Motorsport	11	Aleix Alcaraz [28]	R
		Claudio Cantelli [29]	R
	12	Borja García [30]
		Duncan Tappy [31]	R
Pons Racing	14	Máximo Cortés [32]	R
		Aleix Alcaraz [33]	R
	15	Marcos Martínez [34]
KTR	16	Daniil Move [35]
	17	Guillaume Moreau [36]
Interwetten.com	19	Salvador Durán [37]
	20	Pablo Sánchez López [38]	R
P1 Motorsport	21	Giedo van der Garde [39]
	22	Pippa Mann [40]
Fortec Motorsport	23	James Walker [41]
	24	Julian Theobald [42]
		Fairuz Fauzy [43]
Red Devil Team Comtec	25	Marco Bonanomi [44]
	26	Pasquale di Sabatino [45]
Ultimate Signature	27	Fabio Carbone [46]
	28	Claudio Cantelli [47]	R
		Esteban Guerrieri [48]

Notes:

• Fairuz Fauzy replaced Julian Theobald from the Monaco round onwards
• Duncan Tappy replaced Borja García from the Silverstone round onwards
• Esteban Guerrieri replaced Claudio Cantelli from the Silverstone round onwards
• Claudio Cantelli replaced Aleix Alcaraz from the Hungaroring round onwards
• Aleix Alcaraz replaced Máximo Cortés from the Hungaroring round onwards
• Daniil Move and Guillaume Moreau both left KTR after the Hungaroring round

2008 Calendar & Race Winners

The calendar for the 2008 season was confirmed by Renault Sport on January 9, 2008 ^[49].

Race	Location	Circuit	Date	Pole Position	Winning Driver	Fastest Lap
1	Monza, Italy †	Autodromo Nazionale Monza	April 26	Bertrand Baguette	Giedo van der Garde	Marcos Martínez
2			April 27	Giedo van der Garde	Giedo van der Garde	Giedo van der Garde
3	Spa, Belgium	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps	May 3	Miguel Molina	Bertrand Baguette	Giedo van der Garde
4			May 4	Marco Bonanomi	Giedo van der Garde	Giedo van der Garde
5	Monte Carlo, Monaco ‡	Circuit de Monaco	May 25	Charles Pic	Charles Pic	Charles Pic
6	Silverstone, UK	Silverstone Circuit	June 7	Álvaro Barba	Salvador Durán	Salvador Durán
7			June 8	Robert Wickens	Robert Wickens	Salvador Durán
8	Budapest, Hungary	Hungaroring	July 5	Charles Pic	Giedo van der Garde	Julien Jousse
9			July 6	Fabio Carbone	Fabio Carbone	Fabio Carbone
10	Nürburg, Germany	Nürburgring	August 30
11			August 31
12	Le Mans, France	Bugatti Circuit	September 6
13			September 7
14	Estoril, Portugal	Autódromo do Estoril	September 27
15			September 28
16	Barcelona, Spain	Circuit de Catalunya	October 18
17			October 19

† Monza 1000km support event

‡ Monaco Grand Prix support race

Points System

Points are awarded at the end of each race according to the following system:

In addition:

• The fastest three drivers' in the Super Pole qualifying session will receive 4, 2 and 1 points respectively

The maximum number of points a driver can earn each weekend (except Monaco) is 31 and the maximum number for a team is 55.

Current 2008 Championship standings

Drivers

Pos Driver MOZ SPR MOZ FEA SPA SPR SPA FEA MON FEA SIL SPR SIL FEA HUN SPR HUN FEA NUR SPR NUR FEA LEM SPR LEM FEA EST SPR EST FEA BAR SPR BAR FEA Points 1 van der Garde 1 1 Ret 1 2 5 2 1 21 96 2 Jousse 3 4 Ret Ret 4 7 10 2 2 55 3 Carbone DSQ Ret 15 Ret 12 4 5 3 1 41 4 Durán Ret 14 2 4 16 1 3 Ret 16 40 5 Baguette Ret Ret 1 11 5 6 16 4 4 39 6 Aleshin 5 5 5 3 6 Ret 18 9 15 37 7 Bonanomi Ret DSQ 4 2 13 8 9 5 13 36 8 Pic 9 3 Ret 12 1 15 13 18 9 33 9 A Barba Ret 2 DNS 10 14 3 8 Ret 5 32 10 Wickens Ret Ret 14 Ret 19 9 1 Ret 8 29 11 Moreau 8 6 3 14 7 13 11 Ret Ret 20 12 Molina Ret Ret 9 6 9 23 Ret Ret 3 19 13 Martínez Ret Ret Ret 9 15 2 6 13 Ret 17 14 Walker 7 7 Ret 16 8 10 12 7 10 17 15 di Sabatino 2 10 13 8 Ret 11 14 11 11 15 16 Marsoin 14 Ret 6 7 20 17 25 17 6 14 17 Sánchez López 4 Ret 8 Ret 21 21 24 8 Ret 13 18 Fauzy 3 Ret 15 12 14 12 19 M Barba 12 8 Ret 20 Ret 12 7 10 7 12 20 Guerrieri 22 4 Ret 12 9 21 Move 13 13 11 5 22 Ret 23 16 20 6 22 García 6 Ret Ret 15 11 5 23 Tappy 16 21 6 19 5 24 Cortés 17 16 7 13 10 14 17 5 25 Alcaraz 11 9 Ret 18 Ret 20 22 Ret 18 2 26 Mann 10 11 16 Ret 18 19 20 15 Ret 1 27 Romancini Ret 12 10 17 Ret 18 19 Ret Ret 1 28 Cantelli 16 Ret 12 19 17 14 17 0 29 Theobald 15 15 Ret 21 0 Pos Driver MOZ SPR MOZ FEA SPA SPR SPA FEA MON FEA SIL SPR SIL FEA HUN SPR HUN FEA NUR SPR NUR FEA LEM SPR LEM FEA EST SPR EST FEA BAR SPR BAR FEA Points

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Finished, in points Blue Finished, no points Purple Did not finish (Ret) Not classified (NC) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Blank Did not participate Injured (INJ) Excluded (EX)

• Polesitter for feature race in bold
• Driver who retired but was classified in italics

Teams

Pos Team Car No. MOZ SPR MOZ FEA SPA SPR SPA FEA MON FEA SIL SPR SIL FEA HUN SPR HUN FEA NUR SPR NUR FEA LEM SPR LEM FEA EST SPR EST FEA BAR SPR BAR FEA Points 1 P1 Motorsport 21 1 1 Ret 1 2 5 2 1 21 97 22 10 11 16 Ret 18 19 20 15 Ret 2 Tech 1 Racing 1 3 4 Ret Ret 4 7 10 2 2 88 2 10 3 Ret 12 1 15 13 18 9 3 Carlin Motorsport 5 5 5 5 3 6 Ret 18 9 15 66 6 Ret Ret 14 Ret 19 9 1 Ret 8 4 Interwetten.com 19 Ret 14 2 4 16 1 3 Ret 16 53 20 4 Ret 8 Ret 21 21 24 8 Ret 5 International DracoRacing 3 Ret Ret 1 11 5 6 16 4 4 51 4 12 8 Ret 20 Ret 12 7 10 7 6 Red Devil Team Comtec 25 Ret DSQ 4 2 13 8 9 5