Felipe Drugovich on verge of Euroformula Open title after Monza win

Felipe Drugovich is close to securing the Euroformula Open championship with a handful of races to spare, after winning the opening race at Monza.

RP Motorsport?s Drugovich started third on the grid but exchanged positions with Campos?s Marcos Siebert and polesitter Bent Viscaal in the opening half of the race.

Once Drugovich made his way to the front, he opened up a significant gap. He won the 16-lap contest by 4.38 seconds.

Teo Martin Motosport?s Viscaal was the only realistic challenger to Drugovich in the championship, but his title hopes are all but over after retiring on lap 11. It was Viscaal?s first non-finish of the season.

Siebert finished second, with the podium rounded out by Drivex?s Lukas Dunner. Dunner was able to keep to the tail-end of the leading pack but failed to make any significant impact.

Newcomer Leonardo Lorandi finished an impressive fourth in his first outing for RP, as Matheus Iorio made a mistake with just three laps to go.

Alex Karkosik, Christian Hahn, Aldo Festante Dev Gore and Calan Williams rounded out the top 10. Hahn and Gore had an incident late on, which is yet to be investigated.

Williams finished 10^th despite being hit by Guilherme Samaia early on. Samaia?s race was ruined by wing damage sustained in the incident.

It was a horrible first outing for Kaylen Frederick, who finished two laps down after a nose change early on.

Cameron Das also retired early on, picking up suspension damage sustained on lap 2.

Race results (16 laps)