Starting from third on the grid, the 16-year-old Belgian Dries Vanthoor (Josef Kaufmann Racing) won his first race in the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup. Leader in the championship Louis Delétraz (Josef Kaufmann Racing) lost some poins on his teammate Kevin Jörg.
From pole Jörg had a poor start and fell back to third place. Ukyo Sasahara (ART Junior Team) then moved to the front, Vanthoor followed behind. Callan O’Keeffe (Fortec Motorsports) and Harrison Scott (AVF) overtook Louis Delétraz, who dropped to sixth place.
Vanthoor took advantage of a small mistake made by Sasahara in the last chicane and moved past the Japanese to take the lead. The first four cars were now just 1.2 seconds apart. Sasahara did not leave Vanthoor in peace, but did not get past the RACB driver.
With his first victory Dries Vanthoor took his best result so far (sixth place in the opening race at Monza). Vanthoor is now the second rookie who wins a race. His fellow rookie and countryman Max Defourny (ART Junior Team) won a race at Spa. Ukyo Sasahara and Kevin Jörg completed the podium just in front of Callan O’Keeffe (Fortec Motorsports). Louis Delétraz succeeded to overtake Harrison Scott to finish fifth and is now 40 points ahead of Jörg and 51 points ahead of Sasahara. In the second race the Swiss starts from pole.
Max Defourny lost his front wing towards the end of the race and finished 18th. Alex Gill (Fortec Motorsports) and Bruno Baptista (Inter Europol Competition) had to retire early in the race. The next opportunity to race is on Sunday at 12:20 hrs in race two.
1. Dries Vanthoor (#28) Josef Kaufmann Racing: « My start was not bad and I saw that Kevin (Jörg) had a lot of wheelspin. I followed Sasahara into the first corner and wanted to survive my first lap. After that I pushed a lot. Because Sasahara made a mistake I could overtake him. After that I didn’t push anymore just kept my cool. I am very happy with my first win.
2. Ukyo Sasahara (#9) ART Junior Team: « I spun before the start because there is so much sand on the track. But after that little incident I had a good start and my car was absolutely fantastic. But because of a little bump in the last corner of the chicane, Dries could overtake me there. Lap by lap I pushed towards Dries but could not do anything. Still I am happy with my second place. »
3. Kevin Jorg (#15) Josef Kaufmann Racing: « I had a lot of wheelspin so I did not have a good start. My race pace was good and could close in a bit but on this circuit you really have stay on the clean line because of all the sand. Still it’s good to be on the podium again. »
Press release Formula Renault 2.0 NEC
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