Bent Viscaal dominated both races of the EuroFormula Open Winter Series at the Circuit Paul Ricard on Saturday, taking a lights-to-flag win in race one before climbing from sixth on the grid to take the second race.
The Teo Martin Motorsport driver took a dominant pole position earlier in the day, and retained the lead at the start, and edged away from RP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich, with the Dutchman pulling a gap of over three seconds before the Brazilian managed to stabilise the gap.
Towards the end, Viscaal once again found the speed to pull away, setting the fastest lap of the race to end 5.794 seconds ahead of Drugovich, while Drivex School’s Jannes Fittje completed the podium, albeit 11.749 seconds back.
Fittje was able to capitalise on an early collision between Petru Florescu and Matheus Iorio that saw both crash out whilst running in third and fourth, but he did not have the kind of pace to be able to close down the gap to the leading duo, but he did end up 5.308 seconds clear of team-mate Lucas Dunner.
Dunner battled with Carlin Motorsport’s Cameron Das throughout the race but was able to keep the American behind him when it mattered, while 2017 Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup champion Michael Benyahia was sixth for RP Motorsport ahead of Australian Formula 3 champion Calan Williams of Fortec Motorsport, while Christian Hahn, Moritz Muller-Creppon and Guilherme Samaia completed the top ten.
Felipe Drugovich took two second place finishes on Saturday – Credit: GT Sport
The top six were reversed on the grid for race two, however Dunner was unable to take the start, leaving the third placed position on the grid vacant. Benyahia started on pole but lost the lead to Das before the end of the first lap, while Viscaal moved up to third by the end of the first lap ahead of Drugovich and Fittje.
It wasn’t long before Viscaal was up to second ahead of Drugovich and Benyahia, with the Dutchman having briefly fallen behind the Brazilian after both had passed the Moroccan.
It took until lap six for Viscaal to take the lead from Das, with the American then losing second on the very next lap to Drugovich, with those three finishing in that order at the end of the fourteen-lap race.
Fittje ended fourth after also passing Benyahia, who ultimately dropped to sixth behind Iorio, who drove strongly from the back of the grid after his early elimination from race one, as did Florescu, who finished seventh ahead of Alexey Chuklin, Williams and Julia Pankiewicz.
The top three celebrate after race two – Credit: GT Sport
