Max Fewtrell jumped into the lead into turn one on the opening lap and then withstood pressure from behind to take his maiden Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 victory on Saturday at the Red Bull Ring.
The Tech 1 Racing driver managed to get ahead of polesitter Max Defourny as the lights went out, and drove superbly to defend from the Belgian, who made a couple of attempts to pass the British racer towards the end of the race.
On one occasion, Defourny managed to get inside Fewtrell at turn two, but a better exit from the Briton kept him ahead into turn three. From there on in, Fewtrell was never headed, while the battle allowed Sacha Fenestraz to close up on the leading duo, which would have a dramatic effect on Defourny on the final lap.
Fenestraz managed to get a run on Defourny exiting turn three, and kept his advantage despite going the long way around of turn four, with the move ensuring the young French-Argentine driver moved to the top of the championship standings on 210 points.
Daniel Ticktum just missed out on a podium for Arden Motorsport, finishing on Defourny’s tail, but he was able to capitalise on a lap three mistake at the penultimate corner from Will Palmer to move into fourth.
Palmer’s race then went from bad to worse, as the mistake also saw him fall behind R-ace GP team-mate Robert Shwartzman, before clipping the Russian drivers’ rear wheel with his front wing and falling down the order as a result of the contact. The loss of positions meant that he now falls behind Fenestraz in the championship standings, although by just six points.
Shwartzman also lost momentum, which dropped the SMP Racing-backed Russian down to seventh, with Thomas Randle securing his best result of the season so far in fifth for the AVF by Adrian Vallés team, with Gabriel Aubry following the Australian through into sixth for Tech 1 Racing.
It was worse for Palmer though, as he slipped behind Henrique Chaves, Yifei Ye and Richard Verschoor and out of the points as a result of his heavily damaged front wing, with the Briton eventually ending up twelfth, losing a position in the final laps to Aleksey Korneev. Palmer led home a quintet of cars separated by just 0.680 seconds as he struggled to the line, with Jarno Opmeer, Alex Peroni, Thomas Maxwell and Aleksandr Vartanyan all finishing the race together.
Opmeer will likely drop down the order if found guilty of overtaking at the final corner on the final lap while yellow flags flew for the stopped car of Zane Goddard, while Peroni will be disappointed to spin out of a top ten position on lap four, although he was lucky to avoid retirement as drivers were forced to take avoiding action around the Fortec Motosports car as he stopped briefly on the exit of turn one.
Red Bull Ring Race 1 Result
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