Siebert (Campos Racing) resists Drugovich (RP Motorsport) for maiden win at Estoril

15.04.2018

Argentinean Siebert fended off a late charge from Drugovich to claim his first victory in the Euroformula Open. Viscaal (Teo Martín Motorsport) finished third and claimed another Rookies’ class win ahead of Festante (RP Motorsport) and Dunner (Drivex)

The Circuito do Estoril saw a last lap like no other. An action-packed opening race weekend coming to an end in style. A year promising to only get even more exciting. Argentinean Marcos Siebert (Campos Racing) managed to stop Felipe Drugovich’s late charge, who won yesterday opener, and secured his first win of the season.

In the morning, Petru Florescu (Fortec Motorsports) beat Siebert to pole by one thousandth of a second. The Romanian clinched the pole position by the slimmest of margins and more importantly around one second covered no less than eleven cars. Florescu was able to take advantage of raining conditions and posted a lap of 1m45.210s. With Siebert also starting on the front row, Drugovich and Jannes Fittje (Drivex) took third and fourth spots on the grid. Further adrift, Cameron Das (Carlin) qualified fifth and set to start alongside Bent Viscaal (Teo Martín Motorsport). Aldo Festante and Guilherme Samaia made for an all-RP Motorsport row four and Calan Williams (Fortec Motorsports) and Lukas Dunner (Drivex) rounded out the top-ten positions.

Florescu hold the lead at the start ahead of Siebert. Behind, Fittje moved up to third after passing Drugovich, now fourth leading Das, Viscaal, Samaia and Festante. Florescu was looking good for a podium finish as he and Siebert pulled away after two laps but, by then, Fittje was already struggling to keep Drugovich at bay, finally the latter passing his German rival on lap 3. Viscaal was moving through the field as well and moved up to fifth after overtaking Das.

After five laps, Florescu’s pace was dropping and Siebert started to attack the race leader. On lap six, the Romanian missed the braking point and Siebert subsequently moved into the lead. There was still more drama for Florescu as Drugovich was in recovery mode and stole his second place three laps later.

Siebert’s 3-second advantage began to shrink as soon as Drugovich moved up to second place. In spite of Drugovich pulled off several opportunist moves on the last two laps, Siebert didn’t lose his nerve and grabbed a stunning race win ahead of Drugovich. Viscaal and Fittje passed Florescu after the halfway mark and came third and fourth respectively. Florescu finished into the top-five with Carlin duo of Das and Matheus Iorio right behind. Rounding off the top-ten were Samaia and his teammates Alex Karkosik and Festante.

The Euroformula Open will head to Circuit Paul Ricard on 5-6 May.