Devlin DeFrancesco took his first victory at Formula 3 level in the first Euroformula Open race at Barcelona, after debutant Felipe Drugovich went off out of the lead.
Replacing champion Harrison Scott at RP Motorsport, Drugovich was the initial leader after taking a remarkable pole, and looked set to win before a costly trip through the Turn 4 gravel dropped him to 12th and handed DeFrancesco the lead.
Despite a straight-line speed deficiency in his Carlin car, DeFrancesco was unchallenged up front, and finished the race two seconds clear of team-mate Ameya Vaidyanathan.
?It took a really long time [to win],” said De Francesco. “The team did a great, great job. We were expecting a little bit more from qualifying, but that didn?t turn out. We had a great race car, [but] Drugovich was very, very quick at the beginning. We will have to find out why.”
The victory also lifts DeFrancesco from fifth to third place in the standings, which will be fought out between Vaidyanathan, Jannes Fittje and himself in the final race of the season tomorrow.
Alex Karkosik finished third from sixth on the grid, gaining a spot at the start and another when Drugovich made his mistake. He then chased down Nikita Troitskiy, who had made a terrible start from the front row but somehow ended the first lap in fourth, and put a move on the Russian into Turn 1 with four laps to go.
Troitskiy ended the race in fourth, ahead of EF Open debutants Lorenzo Colombo and Drugovich. Colombo made a poor start from fourth on the grid, and like Drugovich he pulled off multiple clinical overtakes to rise back up the order.
Jannes Fittje finished seventh, with Brazilians Matheus Iorio, Guilherme Samaia and Thiago Vivacqua rounding out the points.
A lap one collision between Ben Hingeley and Tarun Reddy at Turn 4 meant they were the first two retirements, with Cameron Das and Joey Mawson joining them on the sidelines after a bizarre crash in the early stages of the race.
Das swept across Mawson down the pit straight, wrapping his Campos car around the front of Mawson?s BVM Racing-ran machine, destroying Mawson?s front left suspension. Once the cars separated Das drove on for a few corners, while Mawson unwillingly parked on the apex of Turn 1.
The safety car was called out, and seconds later Drugovich made his race losing mistake.
Race results (18 laps)
1 Devlin De Francesco Carlin 35m20.642s
2 Ameya Vaidyanathan Carlin +1.583s
3 Alex Karkosik RP Motorsport +4.320s
4 Nikita Troitskiy Drivex +5.150s
5 Lorenzo Colombo Campos +5.598s
6 Felipe Drugovich RP Motorsport +6.799s
7 Jannes Fittje RP Motorsport +9.653s
8 Matheus Iorio Campos +12.313s
9 Guilherme Samaia Carlin +15.042s
10 Thiago Vivacqua Campos +15.561s
11 Simo Laaksonen Campos +16.063s
12 Pedro Cardoso Teo Martin +17.331s
13 Petru Florescu Fortec +18.110s
14 Eliseo Martinez Teo Martin +19.003s
15 Christian Hahn Drivex +22.054s
16 Daniil Pronenko BVM Racing +23.736s
17 Lodovico Laurini RP Motorsport +26.130s
Ret Cameron Das Campos
Ret Joey Mawson BVM Racing
Ret Ben Hingeley Fortec
Ret Tarun Reddy Drivex
Fastest Lap: Karkosik, 1m40.139s
Championship Standings
1 Harrison Scott 340 2 Troitskiy 204 3 De Francesco 157 4 Vaidyanathan 149 5 Fittje 147 6 Vivacqua 92 7 Karkosik 90 8 Laaksonen 90 9 Iorio 52 10 Martinez 43