Masson wins at Barcelona to grow points lead for Eurocup-3 title decider

Photo: Eurocup-3

Esteban Masson heads into Eurocup-3’s first ever title decider with a 14-point lead after winning the season’s penultimate race at Barcelona.

The Campos Racing driver dominated from pole, building a lead of 2.44 seconds on the opening lap and extending it on every lap of green flag action.

On lap three Daniel Mavlyutov spun out of the race and it meant the safety car was called out, and once racing resumed Masson got 1.6s clear of the rest of the field within a lap. He eventually finished 7.852s ahead of team-mate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, who made a slow start from the front row but managed to hold on to second place throughout.

Jose Garfias was third after the opening lap action, followed by Francesco Braschi, Masson’s main title rival Mari Boya and Sebastian Ogaard. Boya got past Braschi following the safety car restart and by lap 10 he was close enough to MP Motorsport team-mate Garfias to force him to go defensive down the pit straight.

Two laps later Boya was applying pressure mid-lap, then on lap 13 they attempted to go side-by-side into turn one but thought better of it.

A second attempt on lap 17 was more committed but had a worse outcome, with Garfias covering the inside line and Boya sticking to the outside but then running over the kerbs on the outside of the corner. As he drifted back to the right, Garfias was moving to the left for the direction change of turn two and Boya caught his rear-right wheel.

It sent Garfias spinning off into the gravel, but only hampered Boya slightly as he moved up to third place. He had to hold off Braschi to the finish, and although the incident cost his team points it did merit a penalty – despite a post-race investigation – and also minimised his points loss to Masson.

The yellow flags that waved at turns one and two until the end of the race did not impact any battles behind since there were big gaps, with Ogaard finishing in fifth and with several seconds in hand to Bruno del Pino in sixth. However Ogaard did drop out of title contention with his result.

Race result (19 laps)