Rinicella leads practice as Eurocup-3 drivers get first taste of Assen

Photo: Eurocup-3

MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella was fastest in free practice for the fifth round of the Eurocup-3 season at Assen.

Friday’s track action was split into a 80-minute test session in the morning and a 40-minute practice session in the afternoon.

Drivex School’s fourth and fifth cars had new drivers in them, with Lucas Fluxa and Filippo Fiorentino making their debuts, while Kai Daryanani was back in action with MP Motorsport in a seat he shares with Juan Cota and Formula Regional European Championship regular Michael Belov was in Allay Racing’s recently added third car.

Fluxa won twice en route to eighth in the Spanish Formula 4 points last year as a single-seater rookie, and began 2025 with a part-time campaign in Eurocup-3’s winter series which resulted in him coming ninth in the standings.

Since then the Spaniard has been racing in GB3, and is currently 10th in the points table with a best finish of fifth.

Fiorentino steps up from F4, having spent the last three years racing in the category at home in Brazil and Europe. He won a race and came 10th in Brazilian F4 in 2024, and presently sits fifth in Brazilian F4 and 23rd in Spanish F4’s 2025 standings.

Palou Motorsport’s James Egozi set the pace in pre-event testing, posting a 1m31.122s to lead Campos Racing’s Ernesto Rivera by 0.172 seconds and Rinicella by 0.199s.

Campos drivers Jules Caranta, Enzo Tarnvanichkul and Kacper Sztuka were all within 0.35s of Egozi, then MP’s Andres Cardenas, Mattia Colnaghi and Maciej Gladysz filled the next positions and were within half a second of the pace.

Jesse Carrasquedo Jr (Campos) completed the top 10, Belov was 12th, and a second split the top 15.

Egozi was quickest again early on in practice, before Rinicella set a 1m32.118s six minutes in to move ahead. Colnaghi then broke into the 1m31s, and with two further improvements brought the pace down to 1m31.551s.

That benchmark stood for 23 minutes, during which time there was a red flag period due to debris on the pit straight, with Gladysz eventually usurping his team-mate by 0.069s.

He was on top until the chequered flag waved, but after that Belov pipped him by 0.003s and then Rinicella set a 1m31.44s to go quickest by 0.039s.

Sztuka was 0.107s behind in fourth, and Carrasquedo matched his best time on his final lap. Colnaghi did not improve in the second half of practice and ended it in sixth, 0.06s ahead of Rivera.

MP’s Emmo Fittipaldi was also within 0.2s of Rinicella in eighth, and 0.4s covered the top 12. Egozi, despite improving with a late effort, was 11th fastest.

Free practice results