MP’s Andres Cardenas keeps it cool for Eurocup-3 winter series win

Photo: MP Motorsport

MP Motorsport’s Andres Cardenas kept it cool to win the reversed-grid Eurocup-3 winter series race at Jerez.

The top eight from qualifying were flipped to form the front four rows of the grid, putting Cardenas on pole.

He seized the opportunity to shine, and never came under attack as he won his second race outside of Formula 4 by 1.267 seconds.

His team-mate Emmo Fittipaldi started alongside him on the front row, with Drivex School’s Juan Cota and Campos Racing’s Kacper Sztuka immediately behind.

Cota passed Fittipaldi on lap one, and Sztuka dropped to sixth behind Palou Motorsport’s James Egozi and Campos’s Nikola Tsolov.

Race one winner Mattia Colnaghi went off at the start and sat behind Sztuka, as Drivex School’s Preston Lambert crashed out and marshals had to provide assistance to get Alexander Abkhazava’s car off the line.

Allay Racing’s Emil Hellberg went off at the hairpin, and Sztuka lost out to Tsolov through a brilliant move at turn nine after plenty of side-by-side action.

Egozi was having to get defensive against Tsolov at the hairpin on lap three, and his chaser set the fastest lap on lap six. The response from Egozi was to push, and he was soon on the rear of Fittipaldi.

He attacked at the hairpin on lap eight, but after that Fittipaldi got into gear and he was pressuring Cota by race end.

The fastest lap ended up with Campos’s Jules Caranta, who started 10th but dropped to 17th on lap two.

He was up to 12th on lap eighth, when he set the time to beat, and on lap 11 overtook team-mate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak at the hairpin. Two laps later he pulled off the same move on Drivex’s Oscar Wurz, then ran out of time to hunt down MP’s Maciej Gladysz and a points finish.

Abkhazava took the chequered from the pits as he dived in with car trouble. That put him behind Palou driver Aldeu Feuldmann Neto, who was handed a drive-through penalty pre-race.

Race results (14 laps)