Photo: Fotospeedy
Euroformula Open?leader Harrison Scott took his third win in four races despite qualifying down in sixth for race two at Spa-Francorchamps.
A wet qualifying session led to an unconventional grid order, but these positions did not last long as the slipstream down the Kemmel straight meant polesitter Nikita Troitskiy was very quickly shuffled down to fifth.
Race 1 winner and third-placed starting man Ameya Vaidyanathan took the lead, with Carlin team-mate Devlin DeFrancesco (from fifth), Jannes Fittje (from second) and Matheus Iorio (from fourth) completing the top four behind him.
Troitskiy moved back up to fourth at the end of the lap and then reclaimed third from Fittje at Les Combes. Scott was right behind and he wasted no time in clearing Fittje with a stunning pass around the outside of Blanchimont to move up to fourth.
The next time round Scott was second, taking third from Troitskiy down the Kemmel straight then moving up another place after Vaidyanthan span out while being overtaken by DeFrancesco.
Scott took a second out of the leader through the rest of the lap, but had to wait another two before making a move for the lead.
Once ahead though he was faster once again, moving over a second clear before a crash at the Bus Stop chicane between Pedro Cardoso and Alex Karkosik brought out the safety car.
With a greatly reduced lead Scott had to make a strong restart to avoid being slipstreamed and he did just that, putting a remarkable 1.5 seconds between himself and DeFrancesco over the one lap.
From there he cruised home 1.7 seconds ahead and with a strengthened championship lead of 39 points.
?Obviously this morning qualifying didn?t quite go to plan,? said the winner. ?Didn?t make the best of starts either, but then i just worked my way through.?
Overnight work by his RP Motorsport team ridded Scott of the setup issues that restricted him to second in the first race of the weekend
?I had a great car underneath me and I was able to make a gap. Unfortunately the safety car came out, so I was screwed a little bit because the slipstream is so big here. I made a fantastic restart, kept the lead, and from there just managed to control the race.?
After his spin Vaidyanathan moved back up to third, but could not escape after the safety car restart and was demoted to fourth by Thiago Vivacqua.
Troitskiy also suffered, losing fifth on the final lap to Matheus Iorio.
Fittje finished a lowly seventh from his front-row starting spot, with Petru Florescu, Tarun Reddy and Alexey Chuklin rounding out the points.
Race 2 Results (14 laps)
1 Harrison Scott RP Motorsport 35m49.289s
2 Devlin DeFrancesco Carlin +1.791s
3 Thiago Vivacqua Campos +2.719s
4 Ameya Vaidyanathan Carlin +3.912s
5 Matheus Iorio Campos +7.093s
6 Nikita Troitskiy Drivex +7.312s
7 Jannes Fittje Fortec +8.149s
8 Petru Florescu Campos +10.683s
9 Tarun Reddy Carlin +11.626s
10 Alexey Chuklin Fortec +15.695s
11 Daniil Pronenko BVM Racing +16.411s
12 Christian Hahn Drivex +16.832s
13 Lodovico Laurini RP Motorsport +39.887s
14 Simo Laaksonen Campos +1 lap
Ret Eliseo Martinez Teo Martin
Ret Alex Karkosik RP Motorsport
Ret Pedro Cardoso Teo Martin
Fastest Lap: Scott, 2m15.448s
Championship Standings
1 Scott 97 ??2 Vaidyanathan 58 ??3 DeFrancesco 43 ??4 Vivacqua 40 ??5 Troitskiy 40 ??6 Fittje 30 ??7 Iorio 27 ??8 Florescu 20 ??9 Reddy 14 ??10 Laaksonen 14