Eurocup-3 discreetly launched its 2024 season last weekend with a non-championship round in Aragón. The entire event was treated as a preseason round by the series, with three days devoted to simulating a full race weekend. Despite a limited number of drivers present, the round offered us a glimpse of what’s to come this year.

By Juan Arroyo

Eurocup-3 action finally returned on Sunday – at least, unofficially.

Fourteen drivers took to Aragón for the non-championship round, where Valerio Rinicella and MP Motorsport dominated proceedings by winning both races on Sunday. Rinicella also claimed the fastest lap in each of these.

It was a dominant appearance by the Italian driver, who will join MP Motorsport for the Formula Regional European Championship this year, rather than return to EC-3 for his rookie year in F3-regional series.

He took victory in the first race by the thinnest of margins, just 0.361s separating him and teammate Javier Sagrera at the chequered flag. Sagrera took the lead from polesitter Christian Ho on lap 4, however Rinicella passed the Spanish driver for the lead with two laps to go. Owen Tangavelou overtook Ho for the final podium position on lap 8.

Starting from pole position, Rinicella won the second race in much more comfortable fashion – nearly six seconds ahead of Ho. The Singaporean driver benefitted from Sagrera’s retirement with a mechanical issue with less than four minutes left on the race timer. Valentin Kluss also abandoned the race earlier from the pit lane with gearbox issues.

The event, held in tandem with Formula Winter Series’ visit to Aragón, was held in relative obscurity. Publicly, there were no communications from the series organisers prior to or during the weekend. The impression is that this was intended more as a private overture to the rest of the season.

Versa Evans GP and GRS Team were notably absent from the event. Several drivers for teams that did enter also missed this weekend, such as Palou Motorsport’s Luciano Morano, MP’s Bruno del Pino, and Drivex’s Daniel Nogales.

Saintéloc Racing appeared on the round’s entry list but did not participate. Only Diego de la Torre and Alexander Abkhazava of the team’s full-time drivers were included in said list. Matteo de Palo, who will race with Saintéloc in FRECA instead, also featured originally.

MP lead the way early

“This pace was really fast. I’m really happy with the work we did with the engineer, the mechanics, and the team. I [was] really happy with the car. We did a good strategy, so double [win] here, I’m happy.”

Just about everything went right in both races for MP’s Valerio Rinicella this weekend.

Rinicella started the first race from second on the grid behind Campos’ Ho. Early into the race, Sagrera overtook both drivers for the lead. But while Rinicella pulled away with his Spanish teammate, Ho dropped behind.

The leading pair were inseparable for the rest of the race. On lap 12, Rinicella overtook Sagrera on the outside of turn 1 and defended his position until the chequered flag, where they were separated by less than half a second.

When prompted to discuss his overtake for the lead in the post-race interview, Rinicella said he “just [trusted] the car on the outside and [felt] the downforce.”

On lap 8, Owen Tangavelou overtook the struggling Ho for third place, rounding out an all-MP Motorsport podium. Emerson Fittipaldi Jr, last of the MP cars, finished sixth. Meanwhile, Bruno del Pino was not present this weekend despite being confirmed as a full-time driver in EC-3 this season.

Victory proved much easier to take for Rinicella the second time around. It was a lights-to-flag race for the Italian driver, taking the chequered flag six seconds ahead of second-place Ho. The Campos driver actually led a few of the opening laps, but eventually dropped back behind Rinicella and Sagrera.

From lap 4 onwards, Sagrera hovered with a gap of one second or less behind the Italian driver. However, with just over three minutes and a lap remaining on the timer, he began to slow on the back straight. He limped back to the pit lane with a yet-unconfirmed failure and retired from the race. It would have been MP’s second 1-2 finish on the bounce.

Instead, Ho gained a place and his Campos teammate Noah Lisle managed a podium by virtue of his retirement. Owen Tangavelou was close to passing Lisle for third in the closing laps, attempting multiple overtakes into turn 1 and the turn 16 hairpin, but the Australian driver mounted a solid defence – even while struggling for pace. 

MP achieved 1-2-3 finishes twice last season at Estoril and Valencia. The Dutch made up three of the top five in the drivers’ standings last season, though not taking the drivers’ championship. It wasn’t enough to win the 2023 teams’ championship either, as Campos Racing beat out MP by just two points.

Only Bruno del Pino, the 2023 rookie champion, will return for MP from last season’s strong line-up. In a similar fashion, Campos only have Suleiman Zanfari to welcome back from their previous line-up.

With similar levels of experience on both teams this year, it should be an equally tight title fight. Coming into the season, though, MP Motorsport has the upper hand.

What could’ve been for Ho

After a weekend near-dominated by rival outfit MP Motorsport, Christian Ho will be feeling like he could have left with more.

Ho led the round’s first practice session and was within the top three in the second practice session. He claimed pole position for the first race and missed out on another for the second race by two-hundredths of a second.

Strangely, by just over halfway into the first race, he was outside the podium positions. Ho lost places to Sagrera and Rinicella shortly after a yellow flag period caused by an earlier crash and quickly fell behind. At the very least, this could be indicative of struggles by Ho to heat up his tyres following the yellow flag period.

If his tyre temperatures were indeed the issue, then Ho fixed it right as Tangavelou got the better of him on lap 8. The Campos driver piled the pressure on Tangavelou immediately thereafter but couldn’t recover the position in the end, finishing fourth.

Ho battled for first with Rinicella to start the second race, even leading proceedings at the end of lap 1. On the fourth lap, teammates Rinicella and Sagrera mounted enough pressure to force Ho into an error at the end of the back straight. The Singaporean driver went deep into the turn 16 hairpin, allowing the MP pair through.

Ho would get that place back from Sagrera and finish second off the back of his retirement, but not without having to fend off Noah Lisle during the middle part of the race.

It should come to no one’s surprise that Ho impressed early in his Eurocup-3 debut. The Campos driver is coming off a runner-up campaign in Spanish F4 with the same outfit.

At the Spanish F4 Aragón round last year, Ho claimed pole position for the first and second races of the weekend and left with a second-place podium and a victory – though his retirement from the third race must also be mentioned.

Ho already proved his worth in qualifying this weekend. When the Singaporean gets fully up to speed in Eurocup-3, we should expect to see some race victories.

Mechanical issues strike Kluss and Sagrera

Needless to say, it wasn’t Valentin Kluss’ weekend.

The Campos driver missed Free Practice 2 and both qualifying sessions on account of a broken engine, he later confirmed. The issues left him on the back foot, having to start both races from the back of the grid.

He made his way up to fifth in the first race, but not without another car issue in the early stages that led to him dropping to the back of the field. He retired on the final lap.

In the second race, he was forced into the pit lane from gearbox problems, falling several laps behind the field while Campos mechanics attempted to resolve the issue. He retired in the pit lane.

On a weekend where Kluss could get a free pass as a rookie, the missed running time is his biggest loss. He had entered a single weekend of regional cars previously, a one-off appearance at the FRECA season finale in October last year.

Kluss will no doubt want to forget this weekend as soon as possible. Judging from his results in previous results in F4, he knows he has more to offer.

MP’s Sagrera trailed the leading Rinicella by just over one second with just over three minutes remaining in the race. Sagrera began to slow on the back straight and entered the pits, also retiring. Campos’ Ho and Lisle completed the podium places following Sagrera’s car issues.

It is difficult to picture Sagrera catching Rinicella on pace had he not suffered the issue. The gap had started to widen from the earlier stages of the race. But it would have made for a second MP Motorsport-dominated race in the most accurate preview to the season we will get.

Header photo credit: Niels Broekema / Dutch Photo Agency