Harrison Scott took an eleventh victory in thirteen races as he dominated race on at the Circuito de Jerez on Saturday, leading from start to finish from pole position and setting the fastest lap in the process.
The RP Motorsport has already wrapped up the championship thanks to his two wins last weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, but despite two safety car interruptions, he showed that he was not prepared to let up on his rivals with another storming drive.
He maintained the lead at the start, but before the end of the first lap, the first safety car was deployed when Ludovico Laurini and Thiago Vivacqua clashed, but Scott judged the restart well and maintained his advantage of Devlin DeFrancesco, who was relatively untroubled throughout the race in second.
The second safety car was deployed on the twelfth lap when Petru Florescu and Daniel Lu collided, leaving the Chinese driver stranded in the gravel trap, but again Scott judged the restart to perfection, and eventually claimed victory by 2.300 seconds from Carlin’s DeFrancesco.
Nikita Troitskiy moved up to third on the opening lap thanks to a sluggish start from Simo Laaksonen, but once there the Russian was able to maintain his position with relative ease, with Ameya Vaidyanathan’s charge hindered by the second safety car, the Carlin driver being forced to settle for fourth.
Jannes Fittje claimed fifth for RP Motorsport ahead of the recovering Laaksonen, who, after starting third, dropped to as low as eighth, but worked his way passed both Ben Hingeley for seventh and then Alex Karkosik for sixth, with his final move coming on the final lap of the race.
Karkosik was classified seventh for RP Motorsports ahead of Fortec Motorsports’ Hingeley, who now has five top eight finishes in his first five races in the championship to move into the top ten in the standings.
Eliseo Martinez of Teo Martin Motorsport claimed ninth in his home race, while Matheus Iorio of Campos Racing denied team-mate Cameron Das the final point in tenth.
Circuito de Jerez Race 1 Result
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