Russia´s racer strengthens his drivers' championship lead by scoring his third win for Campos Racing in 2015, ahead of Stern (Motul Team West-Tec) and Yu Kanamaru (Emilio de Villota Motorsport). Baptista (RP Motorsport) was given a 10-second penalty and finished 4th
Konstantin Tereschenko has delivered another strong performance at the wheel of the Dallara F312 fielded by Campos Racing, claiming his third race win throughout the season during today´s race held at Circuito do Estoril. It was another action-packed Euroformula Open race with four drivers racing nose-to-tail for the entire race at the front of the field. In the morning, Tereschenko was already able to improve Vitor Baptista´s quickest time on his last attempt of flying lap, they both separated by thousandths after the Brazilian of RP Motorsport topped the session for a long time.
Later, in the race, Tereschenko has kept Baptista at bay at the start, with Yarin Stern (Motul Team West-Tec) and Yu Kanamaru (Emilio de Villota Motorsport) running third and fourth. Japan´s driver, just like Leonardo Pulcini (DAV Racing), who made a brilliant start from 8th on the grid, managed to pass Andrés Saravia (RP
Motorsport) on the opening lap. But anyway the Spanish-speaker driver was still running strong in sixth place.
But one of the key moments was when William Barbosa (BVM Racing) spun out shortly after the race was underway. Yellow flags were waved in the second sector and several drivers, including Baptista, Pulcini and José Manuel Vilalta (Emilio de Villota Motorsport) clocked his best partial times then. It would be a determining factor as they were given a 10-second penalty for improving under yellow flag. So Baptista was in the slipstream of Tereschenko ahead of Stern and Kanamaru, the four drivers setting a very similar pace and separated by a extremely small margin after 19 laps, but his podium chances were a vague possibility.
Tereschenko crossed the finish line first ahead of Baptista, but he dropped to fourth after his penalty. Stern and Kanamaru achieved two other well-deserved podium finishes scoring valuable points for the championship. Tereschenko, collecting 27 points (win, pole position and fastest lap) today, reinforced his lead.
Fifth place was for Tanart Sathienthirakul (Motul Team-West-Tec) who battled with Saravia for rounding off the top-five, with the Guatemalan spinning on his final lap and losing two places, finally coming 8th behind his teammates at RP Motorsport
Damiano Fioravanti and Igor Walilko. Pulcini ended up ninth after his penalty with Diego Menchaca (Campos Racing) was 10th.
Rookie classification was won by Poland´s Walilko, with Pulcini and Menchaca also on the podium.