The second season of Eurocup-3 will start this Friday. After two non-championship races at MotorLand Aragón as part of the Winter Series, points for the championship will be up for grabs for the first time this year at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. In this preview, you will find an overview of all the teams and their drivers, the race calendar, my predictions and more.
This year, six teams with a total of 25 drivers will start the season this weekend. And there are more teams and drivers who are set to join the series later this year. Most of the drivers are taking part in the championship for the first time, but with Nick Gilkes, Javier Sagrera, Suleiman Zanfari and Daniel Nogales, there are also some drivers at the start who already took part in the championship last year.
Campos Racing
Noah Lisle, Valentin Kluss, Michael Shin, Christian Ho, Suleiman Zanfari
Campos Racing, the defending champions of the team and driver championships, are starting the new season with five cars. Noah Lisle was still racing in Formula 4 last year and contested races in the British and Spanish F4, among others. While he won three races in the British F4 and finished on the podium a total of six times, he was denied similar success in the Spanish F4. At the beginning of the year, the 17-year-old Australian competed in the Formula Regional Middle East, which he finished in 19th place in the championship. Valentin Kluss has mainly competed in Formula 4 over the past two years, where his best result was a podium finish in the ADAC F4 2022. The 16-year-old German also made his debut in the Formula Regional EU by Alpine at the season finale at the Hockenheimring last year. Michael Shin mainly competed in the GB3 championship last season, where his best result was fourth place in the reversed grid race at Oulton Park. At the beginning of the year, the 19-year-old South Korean raced in the Formula Regional Oceania. With one win and four other podium finishes, he ended the championship in a strong fourth place. Christian Ho contested his second Formula 4 season in Spain last year. The racing driver from Singapore finished runner-up in Spanish F4 in 2023. The 17-year-old won five races and finished on the podium a further eight times. The team is completed by Suleiman Zanfari. The 18-year-old racing driver from Morocco already competed with Campos in Eurocup 3 last year. His best result was a third place at the season opener in Spa-Francorchamps. He also competed in the F4 Saudi Arabia at the start of the year, finishing in fourth place with three victories.
Drivex
Georgy Zhuravskiy, Gaspard Le Gallais, Victoria Blokhina, Nick Gilkes, Daniel Nogales
The Spanish Drivex team is also starting the new season with five drivers. Georgy Zhuravskiy contested his rookie season in car racing last year. At the beginning of the year, the Russian, who races under the flag of Kyrgyzstan, was still competing in F4 UAE and F4 Spain. The 17-year-old made his debut in Eurocup 3 last year in Valencia. His best result to date was twelfth in the second race in Barcelona. Gaspard Le Gallais is contesting his first Eurocup 3 season this year. The Swiss driver raced in the F3R class of the Ultimate Cup Series last year. He finished as runner-up with three victories and a total of 16 podium places. The Russian Victoria Blokhina also competes under the Kyrgyzstan flag and has mainly contested Formula 4 races in the last two years. In Italian F4, two 15th places were the highest of feelings for the 17-year-old. In 2022, she already worked with Drivex once in Spanish F4 and is therefore already familiar with the team. For Nick Gilkes, it will be his second Eurocup 3 year after last season. The Canadian-British dual national is still waiting for his first podium finish in the racing series. The 18-year-old's best result to date was a fifth place in the first race in Estoril. The team is completed by Daniel Nogales. The 21-year-old Spaniard started last season in Spanish F4 and switched to the Eurocup 3 during the course of the year, where he has already taken part in four race weekends. His best result so far was a sixth place in Jerez.
Saintéloc Racing
Alexander Abkhazava, Diego de la Torre, José Garfias, Finley Green, Jorge Campos
The French team from Saintéloc Racing is now fielding four cars full-time after their first outings with a single car last year. Alexander Abkhazava contested the F4 UAE and Spanish F4 championships last year. His best result was a ninth place in the F4 UAE. At the beginning of the year, the 17-year-old from Georgia took part in the Formula Regional Middle East, where his best result was a fourth place at the Yas Marina Circuit. Diego de la Torre took part in the Mexican F4 NACAM Championship last season. He made it onto the podium once in six races. The Mexican then switched to the Italian F4 and Euro 4 championships, where his best result was a 14th place. José Garfias was one of the regular contenders for a podium finish with MP Motorsport last year. The 19-year-old Mexican took five podiums in his first Eurocup 3 season, finished 14 of 16 races in the top seven and came fourth in the championship. Finley Green took part in Formula Regional Middle East at the beginning of the year after a four-year absence from motorsport. A 19th place at the Yas Marina Circuit was the 21-year-old's best race result. The team also signed another driver for this year, who isn't racing at Spa. Jorge Campos contested ten Eurocup-3 races last year. Four 14th places were the 20-year-old Mexican's best results to date.
Palou Motorsport
Garrett Berry, Theodor Jensen, Kirill Smal, Luciano Morano
The team of reigning Indycar champion Alex Palou is starting the new year with four drivers. Garrett Berry raced in the French F4 Championship last season. The 20-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia won two races, finished on the podium a total of four times and ended the championship in sixth place. Theodor Jensen has mainly contested races in Spanish and Danish Formula 4 over the past two years. The 17-year-old Dane won four of the seven races he contested in Danish F4 in 2023. His best result in the Spanish F4 was a 12th place in Barcelona. Kirill Smal's name also appeared on the entry list for Spa today. The 18-year-old Russian, who competes under the flag of Kyrgyzstan, spent 2023 in the LMP3 class of the LeMans Cup and in the Formula Regional EU by Alpine, among others. While he finished runner-up in the LMP3 LeMans Cup, his best Formula Regional EU by Alpine result was a twelfth place at Spa-Francorchamps. At the beginning of last year, he also finished third on the Formula Regional Middle East podium once. The team is completed by Luciano Morano. The 18-year-old Frenchman has mainly contested Formula 4 races in Spain, the UAE and France over the past two years, but has not yet won a single point in his car racing career.
MP Motorsport
Emerson Fittipaldi Jr., Javier Sagrera, Owen Tangavelou, Bruno del Pino, Dario Cabanelas
The Dutch MP Motorsport team is lining up five cars on the grid this year. Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. competed in Formula Regional EU by Alpine last year, where his best result was an eighth place in Monza. The 17-year-old Brazilian also made his Eurcoup-3 debut at the end of last season. He competed on one weekend each with the GRS Team and Palou Motorsport. A tenth place in Barcelona was his best result. This will be Javier Sagrera's second year in the championship. The 20-year-old Spaniard finished last season in eighth place with three podium finishes, although he only took part in 12 of 16 races. Owen Tangavelou is competing under the Vietnamese flag for the first time this year. The French-Vietnamese dual national contested last year's Formula Regional EU by Alpine with Trident. Two fifth places were his best results. He finished the championship in 14th place. This will be Bruno del Pino's second year with MP Motorsport in Eurocup-3. The 17-year-old Spaniard finished seventh in last year's championship without a podium finish. His best results were two fourth places and five fifth places. Dario Cabanelas changed teams at short notice before the start of the season after it had already been announced that he would contest the season with Saintéloc. But now, he completes the MP Motorsport driver line-up. Last year, the Swiss driver contested several races in Eurocup-3 and achieved his best result with a ninth place in Estoril. The 17-year-old was still racing in French F4 in 2022, where he made it onto the podium twice.
GRS Team
Isaac Barashi, Nikola Tsolov
The GRS team is starting the new season with two drivers. Isaac Barashi mainly competed in the British F4 last season, where he finished on the podium twice and finished the championship in 20th place. Nikola Tsolov will also be competing in Eurocup-3 on five of the eight weekends. The Alpine Junior is concentrating on FIA F3 with ART Grand Prix this year. The 17-year-old Bulgarian finished second twice in Eurocup-3 last year in Jerez. He won the Spanish F4 Championship in 2022.
Versa Evans GP
Cooper Webster
Versa Evans GP is set to take part in Eurocup-3 for the first time this year together with Cooper Webster. However, the first weekend at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps will still take place without them. The 21-year-old Australian has so far mainly competed in the S5000, GB4 Championship and Indian Formula 4. Last year, he finished third in the S5000 Championship. He finished the GB4 Championship as runner-up with five victories and a further ten podium finishes. And he won the Indian F4 championship with eight victories and a total of 11 podium places from 15 races.
Monlau Motorsport
TBA
Just over a month ago, it was also announced that Monlau Motorsport is expanding into another racing series after F4 Spain and will take part in Eurocup-3 during the course of this year.
The number of races remained the same as last year with 16 races on eight circuits. The series will make its debut at the Red Bull Ring, the Algarve International Circuit and the Circuit Paul Ricard, while Monza, Estoril and the Circuit Ricardo Tormo did not return to the schedule. As the series shares its promoter with the Spanish F4 Championship, five of the eight races will be held jointly with the latter.
Round 1: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium (19-20 April)
Round 2: Red Bull Ring, Austria (17-19 May)
Round 3: Algarve International Circuit, Portugal (7–9 June)
Round 4: Circuit Paul Ricard, France (5–7 July)
Round 5: Circuit Zandvoort, Netherlands (13-14 July)
Round 6: MotorLand Aragón, Spain (26-28 July)
Round 7: Circuito de Jerez, Spain (4–6 October)
Round 8: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain (8–10 November)
The top ten drivers in each race receive points for the championship. In addition, there are two extra points for pole position and another point for the fastest race lap.
P1: 25, P2: 18, P3: 15, P4: 12, P5: 10, P6: 8, P7: 6, P8: 4, P9: 2, P10: 1
On the first weekend in March, a non-championship event with two races for the Eurocup-3 was held as part of the Winter Series at MotorLand Aragón. A total of 14 drivers took part. Two practice sessions and two 15-minute qualifying sessions took place on Saturday, followed by two half-hour races on Sunday.
Campos Racing driver Christian Ho set the fastest time in the first practice session with a lap time of 1m54.389s, 0.438 seconds ahead of Javier Sagrera from MP Motorsport. Valerio Rinicella was 0.504 seconds behind in third place. Sagrera lowered the pace in the second session to 1m54.262s, 0.261 seconds ahead of his teammate Owen Tangavelou.
Christian Ho was even faster in the first qualifying session and took pole position ahead of Valerio Rinicella with a time of 1m54.021s. Sagrera and Tangavelou qualified third and fourth. Rinicella took the lead in Qualifying 2, but only by 0.02 seconds. On his final lap, Ho came very close to the pole time of 1m53.670s, and Sagrera also posted a time under 1m54s.
In the first four laps of the very windy first race, Christian Ho was able to maintain his leading position before being overtaken by Sagrera and Rinicella. The two quickly pulled away, while Tangavelou was able to pass Ho on lap eight. In the battle for the lead, Rinicella overtook Sagrera with two laps to go and took the race win. Although Ho did not lose any more places, he was unable to challenge Tangavelou in the battle for third place.
Results - Race 1:
P1: Valerio Rinicella - MP Motorsport
P2: Javier Sagrera - MP Motorsport / +0.361s
P3: Owen Tangavelou - MP Motorsport / +6.032s
P4: Christian Ho - Campos Racing / +6.759s
P5: Michael Shin - Campos Racing / +11.538s
P6: Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. - MP Motorsport / +13.512s
P7: Garrett Berry - Palou Motorsport / +14.036s
P8: Suleiman Zanfari - Campos Racing / +14.506s
P9: Georgy Zhuravskiy - Drivex / +16.462s
P10: Valentin Kluss - Campos Racing / +1 lap
Fastest Lap: Valerio Rinicella, 1m55.179s
The second race began with Ho taking the lead from Rinicella before the first corner. On the fifth lap, Rinicella managed to take the lead back from Ho after several attempts. Ho tried to counter
but was forced to his knees, allowing Sagrera to pass them both for the lead. The lead was short-lived, however, as Rinicella passed him again on turn one of the sixth lap. Sagrera later had to
park his car with a problem. Ho was relegated to fourth place by Noah Lisle at turn two on the seventh lap, but returned the favor a lap later to reclaim third place and later take over second.
Tangavelou chased Lisle throughout the race and eventually overtook him at the end of lap 14, but Lisle managed to stay on the outside of turn one, regaining the place and taking third spot on
the podium.
Results - Race 2:
P1: Valerio Rinicella - MP Motorsport
P2: Christian Ho - Campos Racing / +5.858s
P3: Noah Lisle - Campos Racing / +9.065s
P4: Owen Tangavelou - MP Motorsport / +9.265s
P5: Michael Shin - Campos Racing / +9.782s
P6: Suleiman Zanfari - Campos Racing / +14.629s
P7: Emerson Fittipaldi Jr. - MP Motorsport / +17.932s
P8: Georgy Zhuravskiy - Drivex / +24.467s
P9: Garrett Berry - Palou Motorsport / +27.754s
P10: Theodor Jensen - Palou Motorsport / +33.414s
Fastest Lap: Valerio Rinicella, 1m54.315s
All races will be broadcast live and with English commentary on the Eurocup-3 YouTube channel for free.
As I do in other series, I'm also going to give my personal prediction for the drivers and teams championships in Eurocup-3 for this season.
Drivers Championship
P1: Cooper Webster
P2: Christian Ho
P3: Javier Sagrera
P4: José Garfias
P5: Michael Shin
My favorites in the title fight include Christian Ho, Javier Sagrera and Cooper Webster. Provided Webster and his team can quickly catch up with the pace of Campos and MP, I think the Australian is the fastest driver in the field. However, if he misses more than just the season opener, Christian Ho and Javier Sagrera will take advantage of this. Both already showed strong performances in Aragón and will compete for wins and podium finishes regularly. I also see Nikola Tsolov, Michael Shin and José Garfias driving at the front and fighting for race wins. Drivers such as Owen Tangavelou, Kirill Smal or Bruno del Pino will also be fighting for podium places in my opinion.
Teams Championship
P1: MP Motorsport
P2: Campos Racing
P3: Saintéloc Racing
In the battle for the team championship, I think MP Motorsport and Campos Racing will be fighting for the title. While Campos prevailed last year, I favor the Dutch team from MP this year. Behind them, Saintéloc Racing, Palou Motorsport, GRS Team and Drivex will be battling it out for third place on the podium. After Saintéloc made their debut in Eurocup-3 last season and established themselves as a top team in Spanish F4, I'm confident that the French team will take the next step in Eurocup-3 this year as well. But the other teams will definitely not make life easy for them.
written by Claudio Graf / 17th April 2024