Harrison Scott’s tenth victory in twelve races was enough to see him crowned EuroFormula Open champion with another sublime drive from pole position at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza on Sunday.
The RP Motorsport driver had secured another pole position on Sunday morning by an amazing 1.200 seconds from Ameya Vaidyanathan, and then retained his lead at the start and at two restarts following safety car interruptions.
Scott now has an unassailable lead in the championship despite their being two rounds remaining at the Circuito de Jerez and Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but with ten wins already, there is not likely to be any let-up from the Briton in the remaining four races of 2017.
The race was neutralised almost as soon as it began when Devlin DeFrancesco collided with Ludovico Laurini before the first corner, but Scott judged the restart to perfection, with Simo Laaksonen moving ahead of Vaidyanathan into second, with Nikita Troitskiy soon following into third.
Unfortunately for the Russian, his championship ambitions disappeared when he suffered a puncture that saw him pit and fall to the rear of the field, but he was able to catch everyone up again after the safety car was deployed again when Thiago Vivacqua stopped his car on the exit of Ascari Chicane after contact with Daniel Lu.
On the second restart, Scott again maintained his advantage from Laaksonen, while Jannes Fittje worked on passing Vaidyanathan for third. Eventually the German found his way through, and then he caught and passed Laaksonen for second to make it a RP Motorsport 1-2.
Laaksonen remained on Fittje’s tail until the chequered flag for the final spot on the podium, while Alex Karkosik made it three RP Motorsport machines inside the top four, although he survived a last lap clash with Pedro Cardosa at turn one that ended the young Brazilian’s chance of a first top five finish of the season with a broken suspension.
Ben Hingeley took his fourth top six finish in four races for Fortec Motorsports in fifth, ahead of Troitskiy, who took his Drivex School machine from sixteenth on the restart to sixth at the chequered flag, ahead of Matheus Iorio, Cameron Das, Eliseo Martinez and Guilherme Samaia.
Vaidyanathan’s fall through the field ended with just three laps remaining as he and Tarun Reddy clashed at the second Lesmo, both spinning across the gravel trap and into the barriers.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza Race 2 Result
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