Eurocup-3 title fight tightens up as Boya gets home win

Photo: Eurocup-3

The Eurocup-3 title fight closed up as Mari Boya took victory in the second race at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit.

Boya led an MP Motorsport lockout of the top four places in qualifying, with Sebastian Ogaard joining him on the front row.

They made their way safely through turn one at the start of the lap, while one of Campos Racing’s drivers did a good job to keep control after going on the grass down the pit straight but Nikola Tsolov (Global Racing Service) and Suleiman Zanfari (Campos) found it harder to stay on track and their races ended at the first corner.

That meant the safety car was called, with the field released again to race on lap four. The leading MP quartet held their positions, while points leader Esteban Masson got into fifth place ahead of Francesco Braschi, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, Sebastian Gravlund and Dario Cabanelas.

Inthraphuvasak passed Braschi on lap six, Georgis Markogiannis retired in the pits from 10th place on lap nine, and on lap 11 Boya was put under investigation for potentially jumping the start. At that point he had a lead of 2.8 seconds, and in the second half of the race he grew it to 9.146s in the hope of nullifying any potential penalty.

Ogaard himself had a big gap to Jose Garfias in third, with Bruno del Pino completing MP’s dream day in fourth. Fifth place for Masson means the Campos driver now leads Boya – whose fifth Eurocup-3 win was his first in Spain – by one point, and with Ogaard a further 14 behind.

There was little drama in the second half of the race. Daniel Nogales lost ninth place to a one-second penalty for track limits abuse, and Cabanelas – who was previously in that position – retired on lap 18 with mechanical issues that left him nursing his car back to the pits.

Race result (21 laps)