Colnaghi to the front again in Eurocup-3 with Assen pole and victory

Photo: Eurocup-3

Mattia Colnaghi moved back into the Eurocup-3 points lead with pole for race two at Assen, which he then converted into victory.

A 10-second penalty had cost him race one victory and the points lead on Saturday, but he reclaimed it for the second time of the weekend with the points for pole during qualifying two on Sunday morning.

Campos Racing’s Francisco Macedo was first to set a representative laptime in that session, then team-mate Enzo Tarnvanichkul twice lowered the pace and the benchmark after seven minutes was 1m31.85s.

It took another six minutes to be beaten, and Allay Racing’s Michael Belov was the first to do so. He smashed it with a 1m30.27s lap, and he held provisional pole until Colnaghi edged ahead by 0.014 seconds with a minute-and-a-half left on the clock.

Few had the chance to respond to Colnaghi’s laptime, as shortly after Palou Motorsport’s Zack Scoular caused session-ending red flags.

Valerio Rinicella lost the points lead by qualifying third, 0.142s behind MP team-mate Colnaghi, and trailing by 0.468s and 0.53s in fourth and fifth were Macedo and team-mate Jules Caranta. Both had five-place grid penalties, putting them behind Enzo Tarnvanichkul (Campos), Alexander Abkhazava (MP), Kacper Sztuka (Campos), Maciej Gladysz (MP) and Jesse Carrasquedo Jr (Campos).

Belov’s chances of victory ended almost immediately, as he was slow off the line and then found his car would not hit racing speeds. He steered out of the way to let everyone past, as Abkhazava leapt up from fifth to second ahead of Rinicella.

Tarnvanichkul also dropped down the order, while Sztuka and Carrasquedo slotted into fourth and fifth. Gladysz went side-by-side with Carrasquedo early in lap three and got past him, and Palou Motorsport’s James Egozi was soon putting Carrasquedo under pressure too.

Gladysz set the fastest lap multiple times in clean air and closed in on Sztuka, as up front Colnaghi pulled 1.5s clear.

The race settled down after that in the points-paying positions, although Sztuka attacked Gladysz on lap 11. A lap later the safety car came out due to Lenny Ried (Palou) and Preston Lambert (Drivex School) crashing out at the last corner.

Racing resumed on lap 16, and four laps remained. Colnaghi had saved his tyres well enough to set the fastest lap as he pulled away again, and won by 1.563s.

Everyone else in the top 10 held position, but Tarnvanichkul was able to make progress outside of the top 10 and after several overtakes got into 13th place. That became 12th when Campos’s Ernesto Rivera, another former points leader, got a 10s penalty for overtaking outside of track limits.

Race results (19 laps)