Ben Barnicoat finished the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Series season with victory but Jack Aitken claimed the championship despite failing to finish inside the points.
After spinning into the gravel during qualifying, Aitken’s race started badly when he was forced to start from the pit lane after a car problem on the way to the grid, but Louis Deletraz’s failure to secure victory and a pointless afternoon for Kevin Jörg gave the Koiranen GP racer the title.
Having secured pole position earlier in the day in changeable conditions, Racing Steps Foundation-backed Fortec Motorsports driver Barnicoat was untroubled throughout the race, surviving two safety car periods to take his third victory of the season.
Anthoine Hubert was Barnicoat’s closest challenger throughout the race, with the Tech 1 Racing driver ending just 0.749s back, while Ignazio D’Agosto claimed his third podium finish of the weekend for Manor MP Motorsport in third.
Deletraz, who needed to win the race to have any hope of taking the title, did not have the pace, and dropped behind D’Agosto on the opening lap before losing further ground to Jake Hughes and Ukyo Sasahara to finish sixth.
Matevos Isaakyan ended the finale in seventh for JD Motorsport ahead of Harrison Scott of AVF, while Martin Kodric and Dennis Olsen completed the top ten.
Aitken climbed from the back of the field to finish sixteenth, but his two race victories on Saturday at Jerez were enough for him to add the Eurocup title to his Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS championship he earned last weekend.
The first of the two safety cars was called on the opening lap when James Allen spun his ARTA Engineering at the first corner while taking avoiding action around a spinning Simon Gachet, while Vasily Romanov spinning at the chicane caused the second.
Jerez Race 3 Result
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