Benavides (Motopark) extends lead with win in Race 1 in Hungary

22.06.2024

Brad Benavides (Motopark) extended his lead in the Euroformula Open by taking victory in Race 1 at the Hungaroring, his fifth of the season. The American has now a 78-point advantage on Francesco Simonazzi (BVM Racing) who today finished sixth.

Benavides beat Michael Shin, who signed the pole in the morning, and local hero Levente Révész, who recovered well through the day.

“It was again a strange day”, said Benavides, “For the third time, we had a qualifying session on a drying track, it didn’t go perfectly well for me, but in the race, everything went fine, although this is a series where you can’t take anything for granted until the flag.”

Benavides took an authoritative start from row one, passing Shin immediately and keeping everything under control. By lap 3, he already had built a gap of 3 seconds.

Fernando Barrichello was third in the initial phases before being passed by Révész in lap 4 and dropping more positions later on. Francesco Simonazzi, clearly not at his usual pace, had to concede fifth to Jakob Bergmeister after two laps. He kept fighting with the German until he hit him in the back in lap 11.

This forced the Italian to a pit stop to change the car's nose. When he rejoined the race, he put the show fighting with Benavides to unlap himself, in a duel that delighted spectators.