After the disappointing results from the Autodromo Nazionale Monza last time out, Max Fewtrell returned to winning ways on Saturday as he dominated the opening race of the weekend at Silverstone.
Having taken pole position earlier in the day, the Renault Sport Academy-backed R-ace GP driver kept the advantage into turn one on lap one, and despite a brief safety car period, he was able to beat team-mate Logan Sargeant to the line by 1.5 seconds. The victory also ensured Fewtrell became the first driver to win twice in the 2018 Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season.
Yifei Ye completed the podium for Josef Kaufmann Racing and, coupled with the failure of Christian Lundgaard to finish the race after the Dane collided with Raul Guzman, the Chinese driver has taken over the lead of the championship standings heading into Sunday’s second race.
MP Motorsport’s Lundgaard was disappointed to start only sixteenth on the grid on Saturday and he was attempting to fight back into the points only for the collision with Guzman, with the incident with the Fortec Motorsports driver earning the Dane a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race.
Lorenzo Colombo continued his impressive start to the campaign with fourth place for JD Motorsport, but the Italian was forced to withstand the pressure from Arden Motorsport’s Alexander Vartanyan in the latter stages, while Victor Martins, Charles Milesi (both R-ace GP) and Thomas Maxwell (JD Motorsport) filled positions six, seven and eight.
Richard Verschoor secured ninth place for Josef Kaufmann Racing, while Neil Verhagen claimed the final point for Tech 1 Racing despite surviving a clash with team-mate Alexander Smolyar with three laps remaining that saw the Russian retire.
The American Red Bull-backed driver had also fought off the challenge of Max Defourny during the race only for the Belgian to make some uncharacteristic mistakes late in the day, first running off the track at Farm before spinning at Brooklands with two laps remaining to finish down in sixteenth.
The early safety car was needed to recover the stranded car of Frank Bird at the exit of Becketts after contact with Alex Peroni, which, like his team-mate Lundgaard, will see the Australian drop three places on the grid for Sunday’s race as punishment.
It will be particularly disappointing for the duo after the pair took the top two places in both races around the streets of Pau last weekend in the season opening round of the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup.
