Maciej Gladysz dominates second Eurocup-3 race at Red Bull Ring

Photo: Eurocup-3

MP Motorsport’s Maciej Gladysz took a dominant victory in the second Eurocup-3 race at the Red Bull Ring after taking the lead on the first lap.

Thereafter, Gladysz was able to control the gap to race one-winning team-mate Mattia Colnaghi and finished with over five seconds in hand to him.

Campos Racing’s Jules Caranta was slow away from pole position, allowing a faster starting Colnaghi to draw alongside on the run down to turn one, despite Caranta’s efforts to block him.

Caranta got a faster exit, slotting into the slipstream on the uphill run to turn three before diving to the inside. As the pair ran wide, the door opened for Gladysz to nip through to grab the lead.

Gladysz and Colnaghi immediately began to ease away from Caranta and his fellow Red Bull junior, Ernesto Rivera, with Campos’s Kacper Sztuka and MP’s Valerio Rinicella tucked in behind.

Far from being able to challenge his team-mate, Colnaghi was dropping further back as Gladysz took command.

Caranta was a similar distance behind Colnaghi, as Rivera held up the pursuing group which had been joined by Enzo Tarnvanichkul who had steadily made his way through from 10th on the grid.

Sztuka dropped two places in two laps mid-race, promoting Tarnvanichkul to sixth but he was unable to progress further.

On the penultimate lap, Rinicella was on Rivera’s tail through turns three and four, finally finding a way past into the following left-hander. Rivera then came under pressure from Tarnvanichkul.

Past the pits the two Red Bull juniors were side-by-side, and Tarnvanichkul took the position on the inside. However, Rivera was not going to give up and looked to fight back up to turn three.

Sztuka, having dropped to seventh, took advantage of the battling group to get back into their slipstream and pulled off an outstanding move to outbrake both into turn three on the final lap, holding his line despite a slight lock-up as he grabbed the inside.

Race results (22 laps)