Brad Benavides (Motopark) takes a crafted win in Race 1 at Spa

25.05.2024

Brad Benavides took his third win of the season in Race 1 at Spa-Francorchamps, but it wasn’t an easy one for the American driver of Team Motopark. He beat his teammates Jakob Bergmeister and Levi Révész, while his main opponent Francesco Simonazzi (BVM Racing) couldn’t finish higher than fourth despite starting from the pole position. As a consequence, Benavides is extending his lead in the standings 149 vs 122).

“I am very happy to win at Spa, such a fantastic track and definitely my favourite”, commented the American, “it hasn’t been an easy qualifying nor an easy race. Here, managing the slipstreaming is never simple, but I was lucky and could build some gap that I could administrate up to the end.”

In qualifying, on a damp track, Simonazzi took pole position, the same way as he did at Portimão in similar conditions, ahead of Benavides, while Gerrard Xie, who had finished the session in P1 by 8 thousandths saw his best time canceled for a track limits infringement.

At the start, Simonazzi had a perfect launch ahead of Révész and Benavides but the American took the advantage in the Kemmel straight, with Révész taking second and Bergmeister fourth behind Simonazzi.

Révész challenged Benavides closely in the initial laps, briefly passing ahead in lap 5 before the American responded with a similarly great move. The Hungarian would then make a slight off-track in lap 7, which allowed Bergmeister to pass him.

The German had been closing the gap with the leading duo, fighting at some point with his two opponents. Simonazzi, on his side, lacked the right pace and was soon out of the top-3.

Michael Shin and Fernando Barrichello finished fifth and sixth, ahead of Gerrard Xie, who could not recover much after staying stalled on the grid, and Paolo Brajnik.