Ho snatches pole, Sagrera sixth on grid for Eurocup-3 title decider

Photo: Eurocup-3

Campos Racing’s Christian Ho snatched pole for the title-deciding Eurocup-3 race at Barcelona, with rival Javier Sagrera down in sixth.

MP Motorsport driver Sagrera leads Ho by 18 points, and should they retain their starting positions then Sagrera would take the title. One of the drivers starting ahead of him, Drivex School’s Nikita Bedrin, is a non-scoring guest driver.

Palou Motorsport’s Garrett Berry and Luciano Morano fought for pole at first in qualifying. Berry kicked things off with a 1m42.825s lap to lead his team-mate by 0.067 seconds, then Morano set a 1m39.136s to move ahead by 0.029s.

On his next lap he improved to 1m38.675s, growing his gap to 0.49s, and Berry pitted. Morano got another flying lap out of his set of tyres, and halfway through the 20-minute session held provisional pole by 1.204s with a 1m37.961s effort.

Sainteloc Racing’s Alexander Abkhazava and Daniel Nogales were third and fourth at this point, before debuting team-mate Matteo Quintarelli set a 1m38.518s to move up to second. Morano pitted, while Berry returned to track.

Emely de Heus (Global Racing Service) set a 1m39.253s to hold fourth with nine minutes to go, as 17 of the 27 drivers had set laps.

Morano was dethroned a minute later, with Nogales, Quintatelli and Bedrin all setting 1m37.5s. Diego de la Torre made it three Sainteloc drivers in the top five, and was half a second behind, while Drivex’s Victoria Blokhina was 1.257s off the pace in sixth.

The title contenders, and their usual rival Bruno del Pino, were still yet to lap at a representative pace until with just over seven minutes to go Ho set a 1m37.183s to go fastest by 0.319s. MP’s Emmo Fittipaldi slotted into second, then Bedrin beat Ho’s benchmark by 1.175s.

Blokhina and team-mate Preston Lambert were the next drivers to occupy third place, with Sagrera and MP’s del Pino still down in 20th and 21st.

MP’s Owen Tangavelou got within 0.086s of Bedrin with six minutes remaining, then del Pino leapt up to seventh. GRS’s returning Mari Boya improved to 10th, then Sagrera snatched fifth behind Nogales.

Tangavelou bettered Bedrin by 0.051s next time by but had his lap deleted, and the battle for pole was decided with four minutes to go as Ho set an unbeatable 1m35.563s. Sagrera and Boya improved to fourth and sixth at the same time, before Campos’s Valentin Kluss took fourth place.

Ho’s gap was cut to 0.329s by Tangavelou before the final minute of qualifying, and before the chequered flag Fittipaldi and Nogales improved in third and seventh. Del Pino ended up 15th, 1.209s off pole.

Qualifying results