Aron fends off Leon to win Euroformula race two at Spa

Photo: Fotospeedy

Motopark’s Bryce Aron resisted team-mate Noel Leon’s last-lap charge to claim his maiden Euroformula victory in race two at Spa-Francorchamps.

Jakob Bergmeister started from reserved-grid pole but was slow off the line and so BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi immediately raced into the lead while CryptoTower Racing Team’s Josh Mason briefly made it into second before Motopark stablemate Aron moved ahead.

Despite a big lock-up at Les Combes, Simonazzi ended the first lap with a lead of almost a second over Aron, with Mason 2.4s behind in third and Cian Shields in fourth.

Shields went side-by-side with Noel Leon into Les Combes on lap two and ended up skipping the corner, dropping him behind into fifth place while up front Aron closed in on Simonazzi.

On lap three he passed Simonazzi for the lead around the outside of Les Combes, while Leon passed Mason for third on the run to the corner and Paolo Brajnik almost spun off exiting it.

Simonazzi thought about making a move back on Aron at the Bus Stop chicane but was not close enough, however on lap four he was able to return to the front by repeating the move that Aron did to him.

There was no change of position on lap five as Simonazzi was wise to Aron’s preferred attacking line at Le Combes, but his defence did bring the fastest lap-setting Leon into their battle.

Aron escaped the prospect of losing a position to Leon by making a darting move down the inside of Simonazzi at Les Combes on lap six after jinking around in his mirrors. He then tried to break the slipstream on the next lap, pehaps a bit too aggressively, and Leon was now close enough to attack both the top two.

At Pouhon he tried going on the inside of Simonazzi but it was too risky a move, then on lap eight he cleared the Italian down the Kemmel Straight. Aron benefitted to break away, and had a gap of 1.8 seconds up front with five laps to go.

Leon would close the gap to Aron and got himself within striking distance on the last lap. He was alongside his team-mate down the Kemmel Straight, but Aron held on to the inside line and kept the lead.

Aron defended aggressively at the Bust Stop chicane from Leon’s last overtaking attempt and took the chequered flag in first place.

Race result (13 laps)