Eurocup-3 season ends at Barcelona with pole and victory for Cardenas

Photo: Eurocup-3

MP Motorsport’s Andres Cardenas ended the Eurocup-3 season at Barcelona with his first pole and win in the main championship.

In qualifying he pipped team-mate Emmo Fittipaldi by 0.085 seconds with his final lap. Campos Racing’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr was 0.583s back in third, then MP’s Valerio Rinicella was 0.911s off pole in fourth. He took the position by a small margin, as 0.066s split him, team-mate Alexander Abkhazava, Campos’s Kacper Sztuka and Drivex School’s Michael Belov.

By qualifying 10th, Campos’s Ernesto Rivera exited the fight with Rinicella and Sztuka to be championship runner-up.

Cardenas led the field down to the first corner of the race, and it was four-wide for second behind him. Carrasquedo cut the opening chicane and rejoined in second, but handed the position to Rinicella, with Abkhazava and Sztuka behind them while Fittipaldi dropped to sixth.

Lorenzo Campos crashed, and Adam Hideg and Alceu Feldmann Neto were wiped out in an incident which led to the safety car being summoned.

On the restart, Cardenas weaved down the pit straight to stay ahead. He was unable to shake off Rinicella in the following laps, but avoided being attacked, and after another safety car period triggered by Zack Scoular spinning at turn one he built a half-second gap that he was able to maintain to the end. Second for Rinicella meant he secured runner-up spot in the standings.

Abkhazava dropped down the order in the race’s second half, and Carrasquedo was on the defensive late on to hold off Sztuka. He tried passing him around the outside of turn one on the last lap, but cut the chicane and rejoined back behind.

Belov finished fifth, and a race-long fight between Campos’s Jules Caranta and Ernesto Rivera ended when Abkhazava ended up between them late on. Fittipaldi’s descent down the order continued to ninth place.

Race results (17 laps)