Spa, race 1 Sagrera wins amidst the splashes

Davide AttanasioJavier Sagrera (MP Motorsport) wins the first race of the 2024 edition of the Eurocup-3 championship, now in its second edition. He did so by benefiting from the non-start of Owen Tangavelou, his teammate, who started from first position after the racing management had decided to draw up the starting grid – in the absence of representative times in both practice and qualifying, having been cancelled. due to bad weather – keeping faith with the chronometric references achieved in Thursday’s test sessions.

The twenty-year-old Iberian, three podiums in 2023, wisely managed all phases of the race which began under the safety car regime due to the terrible weather conditions. The race resumed 18 minutes (and one lap) from the end (half an hour and one lap the total time) and did not falter in the face of the attacks of the Saintéloc standard-bearer Alexander Abkhazava, who finally finished second after attempting all in all on the last lap. On the third step of the podium is Kirill Smal (Palou), a Russian driver who competes with a Kyrgyz license for reasons known to all, ahead of a tough Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. (MP Motorsport) and an equally, if not more, aggressive Suleiman Zanfari (Campos ).

Team Campos who with Valentin Kluss, seventh, placed the first rookie to reach the finish line. Palma which would probably have gone to the Singaporean Christian Ho, fifth before a problem arose which forced him to retire, while another safety had entered the track. In fact, after the first inaugural laps already mentioned, the safety car made its second entry on the Spa circuit for the retirements of Noah Lisle (Campos) and the now veteran – not in terms of years but of experience – Nikola Tsolov .

When it seemed that the race would end as it had begun – also because the intensity of the rain had increased again – here was the new green flag, and really everything happened, with the brawl raging for both first and third place . And yet, behind them they didn’t stand by and watch, with the last lap being an authentic and dangerous rollerball, with four cars, some before, some after, involved in a spin uphill towards the Kemmel straight.

The red flag, with the final classification referring to the penultimate lap completed, was the logical consequence of an afternoon that could have taken on not very pleasant “outlines”, as happened last July on this very track in the Regional by Alpine…

Friday 19 April, race 1

1 – Javier Sagrera – MP Motorsport – 7 laps
2 – Alexander Abkhazava – Saintéloc – 0″900
3 – Kirill Smal – Palou – 1″471
4 – Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. – MP Motorsport – 2″538
5 – Suleiman Zanfari – Campos – 3″112
6 – José Garfias – Saintéloc – 3″568
7 – Valentin Kluss – Campos – 4″341
8 – Dario Cabanelas – MP Motorsport – 4″977
9 – Theodor Jensen – Palou – 5″113
10 – Nick Gilkes – Drivex – 5″707
11 – Michael Shin – Campos – 6″078
12 – Diego de la Torre – Saintéloc – 6″363
13 – Daniel Nogales – Drivex – 7″275
14 – Georgy Zhuravskiy – Drivex – 7″887
15 – Garrett Berry – Palou – 8″855
16 – Luciano Morano – Palou – 9″450
17 – Victoria Blokhina – Drivex – 10″796
18 – Bruno del Pino – MP Motorsport – 16″887
19 – Finley Green – Saintéloc – 18″471
20 – Gaspard Le Gallais – Drivex – 22″614
21 – Isaac Barashi – GRS – 23″907
22 – Christian Ho – Campos – +1 lap

Retreat
Nikola Tsolov
Noah Lisle

Not gone
Owen Tangavelou

The championship
1.Sagrera 26; 2.Abkhazava 18; 3.Small 15; 4.Fittipaldi Jr. 12; 5.Zanfari 10; 6.Garfias 8; 7.Kluss 6; 8.Cabanelas 4; 9.Jensen, Tangavelou 2; 11.Gilkes 1.