Mattia Colnaghi starts Eurocup-3 campaign with victory at Red Bull Ring

Photo: Eurocup-3

MP Motorsport’s Mattia Colnaghi led home Campos Racing’s Kacper Sztuka for a lights-to-flag victory in Eurocup-3’s season-opening race at the Red Bull Ring.

Despite pressure in the latter stages from Sztuka, who set a series of fastest laps as he chased the leader, Colnaghi never came under serious threat and finished 0.62 seconds ahead.

Colnaghi made a perfect getaway from pole position to lead Sztuka into turn one, with Global Racing Service’s Yani Stevenheydens slotting into third ahead of Campos’s Ernesto Rivera. As the front two began to eke out a gap, Rivera passed Stevenheydens for third on lap three.

MP’s Valerio Rinicella dropped from fifth to seventh early on, losing out to Sainteloc Racing’s Garrett Berry on lap two then Palou Motorsport’s James Egozi the lap after.

There were no more overtakes after that, although a five-second penalty for track limits abuse demoted Stevenheydens to seventh.

The main excitement in the race was provided by MP’s Maciej Gladysz, who started 25th after recording no valid laptimes in qualifying due to track limits abuse.

He gained nine places on lap one, gained another three spots over the next two laps then after getting ahead of Oscar Wurz for 12th he went in pursuit of a four-car group consisting of Emmo Fittipaldi, Jules Caranta, Andres Cardenas and Enzo Tarnvanichkul.

Fittipaldi was busy keeping Caranta at bay, and on lap 11 ran wide on the outside of turn four while defending. He went through the gravel and ended up finishing the race in 16th. Gladysz had quickly caught the group but could make further progress until Fittipaldi had his off.

Race results (21 laps)