Felipe Drugovich claimed victory in the final Euroformula Open race of the season, making up for his race-losing mistake from the lead in the previous race at Barcelona.
In qualifying Ameya Vaidyanathan went fastest, with Drugovich second after backing out of his final lap which could’ve been good enough for pole. Nikita Troitskiy was third fastest, with Jannes Fittje and Joey Mawson fourth and fifth.
Vaidyanathan made a poor start from pole, his first in car racing, allowing Drugovich and Nikita Troitskiy past.
Troitskiy, who was looking to end the season with his first win in the championship, kept to within a second of Drugovich, but the RP Motorsport driver never offered an opportunity for the Drivex School racer to come past.
On the final lap of the race, Troitskiy lined up a move at the Turn 14/15?chicane, but wasn?t close enough to get past. He took the chequered flag just 0.26 seconds behind.
“It was very good, and very tough,” said the winner.
“The rear tyres were going off quite a lot towards the end, but I could keep up [the same pace as] Troitskiy.? At the end it was really difficult, he was really putting pressure on me.”
With third in the championship still up for grabs, Vaidyanathan needed a strong result to get back ahead of Devlin De Francesco, whose win in the first race at Barcelona put him past the Indian in the standings and also secured the Canadian the Spanish Formula 3 championship.
After his start hiccup, Vaidyanathan attempted to stay with the front two, but could not keep up and was left to do battle with Joey Mawson in the early laps.
The Carlin driver defended well and managed to escape Mawson’s grasp, as the Australian turned to defending fourth from De Francesco, who had qualified sixth.
Vaidyanathan finished third, taking the points for second as Drugovich was ineligible for points, but with De Francesco getting the points for third thanks to Mawson’s own ineligibility, the Indian fell five points short of third in the standings.
Lorenzo Colombo finished sixth, ahead of Jannes Fittje, and Simo Laaksonen. The slow-starting Alex Karkosik claimed ninth, with Thiago Vivacqua rounding out the top 10.
Race results (17 laps)
1 Felipe Drugovich?RP Motorsport 28m34.697s
2 Nikita Troitskiy Drivex +0.260s
3 Ameya Vaidyanathan Carlin +6.208s
4 Joey Mawson BVM Racing +7.609s
5 Devlin De Francesco Carlin +8.083s
6 Lorenzo Colombo Campos +8.921s
7 Jannes Fittje RP Motorsport +11.028s
8 Simo Laaksonen Campos +11.508s
9 Alex Karkosik RP Motorsport +12.723s
10 Thiago Vivacqua Campos +23.884s
11 Petru Florescu Fortec +25.747s
12 Ben Hingeley Fortec +28.600s
13 Eliseo Martinez Teo Martin +28.972s
14 Cameron Das Campos +29.802s
15 Pedro Cardoso Teo Martin +30.059s
16 Guilherme Samaia?Carlin +33.474s
17 Lodovico Laurini RP Motorsport +40.130s
18 Christian Hahn Drivex +40.956s
19 Daniil Pronenko BVM Racing +42.031s
Ret Matheus Iorio Campos
Ret Tarun Reddy Drivex
Pole: Vaidyanathan, 1m38.089s
Fastest Lap: Troitskiy, 1m40.076s
Championship Standings
1 Harrison Scott 340? ?2 Troitskiy 230? ?3 De Francesco 172? ?4 Vaidyanathan 168? ?5 Fittje 159? ?6 Laaksonen 100? ?7 Karkosik 98? ?8 Vivacqua 98? ?9 Iorio 52? ?10 Florescu 45
Rookie Standings
1 Troitskiy 124? ?2 Fittje 97? ?3 De Francesco 92? ?4 Laaksonen 54? ?5 Karkosik 48? ?6 Martinez 31? ?7 Florescu 23? ?8 Reddy 17? ?9 Laurini 7? ?10 Javier Cobian
Spanish F3 Standings
1 De Francesco 119? ?2 Vaidyanathan 94? ?3 Laaksonen 70? ?4 Martinez 61? ?5 Vivacqua 57? ?6 Iorio 55? ?7 Florescu 50? ?8 Reddy 30? ?9 Pronenko 18? ?10 Cardoso 17