Gladysz wins after Red Bull juniors collide in Eurocup-3 winter series

Photo: MP Motorsport

Maciej Gladysz benefitted from contact between Red Bull juniors Nikola Tsolov and Jules Caranta to win the last race of the opening Eurocup-3 winter series round at Jerez.

It was a simple battle to be fastest in qualifying, which took place earlier in the day, with Global Racing Service’s Cristian Cantu on top at first, Palou Motorsport’s Luciano Morano lowering the pace twice then MP Motorsport’s Gladysz setting four successive improvements to occupy first place uninterrupted to the end.

Campos Racing’s Red Bull duo Caranta and Tsolov were 0.159 and 0.2 seconds slower than him in second and third, MP’s points leader Mattia Colnaghi was fourth and close behind him were Jesse Carrasquedo Jr (Campos), Oscar Wurz (Drivex School) and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak (Campos).

Early title contenders James Egozi (Palou) and Juan Cota (Drivex) had all their laptimes deleted due to track limits abuse, and along with the slow Linus Hellberg (Allay Racing) and Adam Hideg (Palou) needed permission to start the race.

Gladysz didn’t make the best of getaways at the start of the race and focused on defending against those directly behind him. While both Carrasquedo and Wurz ended up on the grass as the cars fanned across the track, Caranta took the lead on the approach to the first turn.

As Gladysz then looked for a way back past Caranta down the back straight, Tsolov drove around his outside to take second place.

Caranta had opened up a second’s lead over Tsolov in the first five laps, although Tsolov had begun to reduce the margin by three tenths of a second before the safety car was deployed following a crash between Hideg and Lenny Ried.

Just 12 minutes remained when the race restarted and Caranta and Tsolov immediately went side-by-side in Turn 2, then again in Turn 6 where Tsolov slid down the inside under braking and then gave his team-mate no space on the outside, resulting in contact.

As Tsolov slowed with damage that would force him to retire, Gladysz drove around the outside of Caranta to reclaim the lead. With Caranta’s car potentially also hobbled by the contact, Gladysz would open up a gap of almost five seconds on his way to the chequered flag.

While Colnaghi couldn’t challenge Caranta, he did complete another double podium for MP’s Spanish F4 graduates after keeping Inthraphuvasak at bay. Carrasquedo, Emmo Fittipaldi and Wurz followed while Egozi charged from the back to finish ninth behind Alexander Abkhazava and ahead of Kacper Sztuka. Cota recovered as far as 15th.

Race results (18 laps)