Francesco Simonazzi won the battle as BVM Racing’s lone soldier at the Hungaroring, but he has solid ground to make up in the fight against Motopark’s Brad Benavides.

By Juan Arroyo

Simonazzi won two of the three Euroformula Open races over the weekend, putting him 63 points behind championship leader Benavides with four rounds to go.

The pair have been the constant presence at the front, touted as title rivals since the beginning of the season. So far, Benavides has got the best of his Italian rival with a sizable points margin and five victories to Simonazzi’s four.

But as the series wrapped up the first half of its schedule, the Motopark driver proved he is not immune to struggles over a weekend. A victory by a margin of six seconds to his nearest rival in race one preceded a difficult Sunday for Benavides, who finished more than 10 seconds behind race winner Simonazzi in the round’s remaining two races.

Benavides has not been one to slip up frequently; he has achieved 11 podium finishes out of a possible 12. But it is Simonazzi, rather than any one of his Motopark teammates, who has readily snapped up most of the opportunities left over by the American this season, and it has given the Italian a fighting chance for the title heading into the second half of the season.

Feeder Series breaks down some of the main talking points of the weekend.

Simonazzi shines amid Benavides’ struggles

In terms of results, the Hungaroring weekend was a successful one for Benavides, who left with a win, two podiums, and a healthy championship lead of 63 points.

Benavides only narrowly missed out on pole position by 0.034s and went on to win race one by a comfortable margin, while Simonazzi finished a lap down in last after taking damage from a failed overtake attempt. But the American driver was noticeably behind Simonazzi on pace on Sunday.

The BVM driver took the chequered flag in race two with a 12.5s lead over Jakob Bergmeister, with Benavides a second behind the German. It was the Italian’s largest margin of victory of the year until he eclipsed it with a 13.7s gap to Benavides in race three. Simonazzi was 0.4s–1.0s faster every lap on that occasion.

Benavides nonetheless bumped up his consecutive podium streak up to six. He increased his points lead over Simonazzi by three points leaving the round.

Tough break for Révész opens a door for Barrichello

Levente Révész’ third-place finish in race one became a consolation prize by the end of the weekend.

At the second turn of race two, the Hungarian driver was hit from behind by Fernando Barrichello, who locked up and tapped Révész’ left-rear wheel. Barrichello spun into the run-off area from the contact, while Révész’ entry into the corner was destabilised.

He entered the pit lane on lap three to verify if his car’s suspension had sustained damage from the incident. After repairs were carried out, he finished four laps down.

Trouble followed at the start of race three, when he and Bergmeister – second and first on the grid respectively – made contact on the run down to Turn 2. The incident resulted in a broken front wing for Révész and a puncture for the German driver, and both had to pit at the end of the opening lap. Révész did not sustain major damage this time around and continued on for the remainder of the race.

He expressed his frustration with his results when speaking to Feeder Series after race three. 

“We were optimistic for the races, but both of them went pretty badly. The accidents were in the first laps in both. There wasn’t much I could do with them. Both were unfortunate,” he said.

“In the first race [Sunday], there was a bigger issue with the car since lots of things were bent and that wasn’t something they could fix very quickly. But in the second race, the front wing broke off and we changed it. After that, we were fast – or rather, I was the fastest in the field. We drove at a good pace even if there wasn’t much of a point to it.”

Révész and Bergmeister’s clash at the start of race three helped Fernando Barrichello get into third place after the opening lap – and ultimately achieve his maiden podium in the series.

“I didn’t manage a really good start, but then I was able to get a couple of overtakes and sort of not crash into the guys that were crashing in front of us. And then we had decent pace,” Barrichello said after the race.

Where is the next race?

Euroformula Open will visit Circuit Paul Ricard in the south of France on July 20 and 21. The 5.842 km track is a staple of the series, having been on the calendar every year since 2015.

Last year, Juju Noda took the lead of race one following a collision between race leaders Noel León and Simonazzi and became the first female winner in the series. Bryce Aron, now in Indy NXT, and Cian Shields, currently racing in Formula 3, also took wins that weekend.

Simonazzi and Bergmeister are the only ones from the current grid to have previously raced at the circuit with the Dallara 320. Révész and Benavides also have experience at Circuit Paul Ricard having competed there in Formula Regional Europe.

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Euroformula Open