Photo: Fotospeedy
Pierre-Louis Chovet is among the last-minute entries that have been announced for this weekend’s inaugural Eurocup-3 round at Spa-Francorchamps.
The 21-year-old raced in Euroformula back in 2019, then was a Formula Regional European Championship race-winner in 2020. He was FRegional Asian Championship runner-up the year after, then in 2022 became an official Lamborghini young driver while competing part-time in FREC.
His Lamborghini connection has led to him landing a top GT3 seat in International GT Open for 2023 with Team Oregon, and he sits 12th in the standings after the opening round.
Last month he was also signed by Drivex School to be its test driver and driver coach for Eurocup-3, and now he will also race for the team.
“I’ll be racing next weekend in Eurocup-3,” he told Formula Scout in the GT Open paddock last weekend. “And I’ll be coaching the team, this is already official, for the whole season. Coaching my team-mates.”
His coaching role will make a significant budgetary contribution to funding his Eurocup-3 seat, and he will be team-mate to GB3 race-winner Nick Gilkes and 2021 Formula Nordic champion William Karlsson.
The other last-minute addtions to the grid are FIA Formula 3 racer Mari Boya at MP Motorsport, Cian Shields at Palou Motorsport and Cenyu Han at Global Racing Service. Shields and Han are not confirmed beyond Spa.
Shields is racing at the F3 level this year in Euroformula for the dominant Motopark team, and sits sixth in the standings after last weekend’s opening round at Algarve.
He is in his second year of car racing, having graduated from karting into GB3 last year. He won a reversed-grid race at Silverstone and claimed two other podium finishes in reversed-grid races to come 13th in the standings. His best result in races with conventionally-set grids was fifth.
Chinese teenager Han was signed by Fernando Alonso’s driver management firm A14 Management at the end of 2022, and did half a FREC campaign that year. He started 2023 by competing in FRegional Middle East.
Han spent 2020 and ’21 racing in Formula 4, achieving a best finish of sixth in the Italian championship and a podium in Germany’s ADAC series in 2021 before his campaign was cut short by visa problems.
He is GRS’s only confirmed driver for Eurocup-3, and the team has also made a last-minute signingin the supporting Spanish F4 series.
Daniel Macia will make his series return after being a frontrunner in ’21 and making a singular outing 2022, when his focus was on karting. He is currently only down for this weekend, but plans for more outings.
“I’m delighted to be back on the grid and super happy to know that, after my first full season in 2021, there still are teams interested in me,” said Macia.
“I’m very excited to start the weekend and try to put the car in the best spot as possible on a track like Spa. The goal is to be consistent and score the highest possible number of points. Infinite thanks to GRS for their trust in me.”