Noel Leon gets second Euroformula win in a row in opening Spa race

Photo: Fotospeedy

Motopark’s Noel Leon claimed a second Eurofomula win in a row in the opening race at Spa-Francorchamps.

Leon made a slow start from pole, and team-mate Cian Shields was even slower from the other side of the front row, meaning it was BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi who led into the opening corner.

The trio then went three-wide down the Kemmel Straight and Shields went around the outside of Leon and Simonazzi at Les Combes to take the lead in a great move. Leon briefly had his nose in front of Simonazzi too, but the Italian was in second exiting the corner.

Simonazzi returned the favour on Shields at Les Combes on lap two, then on lap three Shields did the same overtake again to get back into the lead. Leon tried passing Simonazzi at the Bus Stop chicane but had to wait until the Kemmel Straight on the next lap before he could get back into second.

Bryce Aron relegated Simonazzi to fourth with a move at Les Combes on lap five, as CryptoTower Racing Team’s series returnee Josh Mason passed Motopark stablemate Jakob Bergmeister for fifth.

From there the order remained pretty static for the rest of the 13-lap race, with Shields having a 0.75-second gap to close up on Leon. He got it down to 0.561s before Leon started pulling away and had a lead of 1.1s with two laps to go.

A wobble then enabled Shields to start filling his mirrors down the Kemmel Straight on the final lap, but he was able to finish 1.129s ahead.

Aron was not too far further behind, while Mason took fourth from Simonazzi on the final lap. Juju Noda passed Bergmeister mid-race to finish sixth, but she did have her mirrors full of the German and the debuting Gerrard Xie through the race’s second half.

Paolo Brajnik finished a distant ninth and Vladimir Netusil was even further back in 10th after he spun at the Bus Stop chicane.

Race result (13 laps)