Palou Motorsport Eurocup-3 rookie Garrett Berry said the weather conditions at Spa during the series’ opening weekend of 2024 were the worst he’d ever driven in.

By Juan Arroyo

The weekend’s schedule was disrupted by severe weather over the village of Francorchamps, where the Spa-Francorchamps circuit is located.

Collective tests were held on Thursday, while practice, qualifying and race one were scheduled for Friday. However, increased rainfall and hail early in the day on Friday made conditions unmanageable for drivers on track, forcing organisers to cancel practice and qualifying.

It meant that the starting order for race one would be decided based on the results of Thursday’s second test session, in which Berry, a 20-year-old rookie stepping up from French F4, was 18th fastest.

“On the Thursday, it was quite a bit warmer and I was able to get the tires up to temperature,” Berry said. “I enjoy driving in the wet. I think I have decent pace in the wet. But on race day, the conditions were much colder.”

Hail began falling on the grid 20 minutes before race one got underway. Nevertheless, conditions were deemed suitable to start behind the safety car. It took 12 minutes, nearly half of the 30-minute plus one lap race duration, for precipitation to decrease to the point that green-flag running would be deemed safe.

Heavy rain returned as the race’s second safety car period ended with two laps to go. The rain further intensified as race leader Javier Sagrera crossed the line to start the final lap. By the time Sagrera reached the end of the Kemmel Straight, several drivers – including Berry – were aquaplaning. Berry was classified 15th.

Nick Gilkes, Gaspard Le Gallais, and Berry’s teammate Luciano Morano had accidents driving through Eau Rouge, which caused a red flag that consequently ended the race.

“There was a lot more standing water on the straights towards the end of the race and, like I described on my Instagram post, it was the worst conditions I’ve ever driven in,” he said.

“At the start of the race, we had a decent amount of grip. I’d say the start was okay. It’s just when it started raining sideways towards the end of the races, when it really started to kick off. I’m pretty sure there was some hail during the race as well, during one of the safety car periods.”

“There was very limited grip, and since we took a risk as we were starting the back [and] went for an interesting downforce package, these conditions just gave us even less grip.”

Several drivers who spoke to Feeder Series during and after the race weekend were critical of the race director’s handling of the safety car restart as a result of the accidents in Eau Rouge. Berry said a red flag should have been thrown before the final lap but also said “being a race director is quite hard.”

“Sure, they have the most valid data, but, at the end of the day, the race director is God, I like to say. They control the situations. Yes, they could have thrown the red flag earlier. Maybe we couldn’t have done the race restart, but it’s really hard for them to make that decision at the time,” the American told Feeder Series.

“I will say [the red flag] should have been called out earlier. If you put me up there, I don’t know what would happen, but I feel the call was a bit delayed. Everyone was complaining and it was quite dangerous conditions.”

Berry also said he was not aware that any driver had asked to stop the race on the radio before the safety car period ended.

“When the safety car went in, it was still quite decent conditions. I felt it wasn’t really pouring down rain yet. It wasn’t really in the dangerous conditions yet. I feel like it was the lap after the safety car went in is when maybe it should have been looked [at] because people were going off and making tons of mistakes. It’s just, we were gliding on top of the circuit.”

Berry said he was “hoping for some better weather and just getting more track time” in Austria next month, when Eurocup-3 visits the Red Bull Ring for the second round of the season.

Header photo credit: Niels Broekema / Dutch Photo Agency