Photo: Fotospeedy
Motopark’s Noel Leon clinched the Euroformula title with a round to spare in the series’ Mugello double-header.
Leon was third fastest in qualifying, with Charlie Wurz and Joshua Dufek split by 0.006 seconds in the fight for pole. BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi was fourth fastest, with Motopark’s Bryce Aron and Cian Shields sharing row three of race one’s grid.
A strong start put Leon straight into second place, and he went to the outside of Wurz while Dufek headed to the inside for the first braking zone. Wurz managed to stay ahead, and later in the lap began to pull away.
A lap two off for Dufek promoted Simonazzi to third, and a lap later that became second as Wurz crashed out. The safety car was summoned, and racing resumed on lap six with Leon leading Simonazzi, Dufek, Aron, Levente Revesz and Shields.
Simonazzi passed Leon straight away, and built a gap of 1.2s within the lap. That grew to 1.7s, but then Leon started to close in and was a second behind on lap 12 before Simonazzi had his own off. That brought Leon right onto his gearbox, and the lead changed hands at the exit of turn one on the next lap.
By the end of the 17-lap race he was 1.148s clear, with Dufek hounding Simonazzi across the line at the finish. Shields passed Revesz and Aron, then massively pulled away from both to finish fourth, and in the last few laps Aron was pressured by Revesz.
For race two, Revesz and Aron shared the front row of the reversed grid ahead of Shields, Dufek, Simonazzi and Leon. Shields attempted going around the outside of Revesz at turn one to take the lead but had to settle for second.
On lap three did get his move done for the lead, then raced away for his fourth Euroformula win. Revesz switched to a defensive style of driving after that, and was initially helped in retaining second by mistakes from behind.
Simonazzi tried passing Aron for third at turn two on lap six but had an oversteer moment and could not get the move complete, but later in the lap Aron went off. That lifted Simonazzi up a spot, despite also going off later in the lap.
Aron dropped to last place, and Simonazzi pursued Revesz. On lap nine he went to pass around the outside of turn one but Revesz forced him onto the grass and he dropped behind Leon and Dufek. Leon had a go at Revesz the next lap and was side-by-side for a while until Revesz squeezed him out and he lost a place to Dufek.
Although he also got pushed off by Revesz when going for the outside line at turn one on lap 11, Dufek did not lose ground and actually managed to pass him at the start of the next lap. Revesz was shown the black-and-white flag on lap 14, and he eventually lost third when Leon slipstreamed past him at the finish. That was more than enough for Leon to become champion.
Results round-up
Race 1 (17 laps)
1 Noel Leon Motopark 31m34.427s
2 Francesco Simonazzi BVM Racing +1.148s
3 Joshua Dufek CryptoTower Racing Team +1.535s
4 Cian Shields Motopark +9.002s
5 Bryce Aron Motopark +19.498s
6 Levente Revesz Motopark +20.278s
7 Paolo Brajnik NV Racing +33.851s
Ret Charlie Wurz CryptoTower Racing Team
Pole: Wurz, 1m36.563s
Fastest lap: Leon, 1m38.976s
Race 2 (17 laps)
1 Shields 28m12.332s
2 Dufek +6.918s
3 Leon +14.417s
4 Revesz +14.466s
5 Simonazzi +16.394s
6 Wurz +17.099s
7 Brajnik +56.988s
8 Aron +1 lap
FL: Shields, 1m38.536s
Championship standings
1 Leon 367 2 Shields 275 3 Simonazzi 262 4 Aron 238 5 Dufek 138 6 Juju Noda 118 7 Jakob Bergmeister 116 8 Josh Mason 96 9 Wurz 88 10 Revesz 60