For Brad Benavides, victory in the opening round of Euroformula Open in Portimão represented the best way to start the fifth year of his car racing career, especially after a roller-coaster journey from exiting Formula 2 in July 2023 when he was replaced by Josh Mason after the Hungarian round. Two second-place finishes sandwiched his maiden top-step appearance as the Floridian racer began his 2024 campaign with three trophies to lead the championship. Feeder Series caught up with Benavides after his triumph in race two.

By Jim Kimberley

For some drivers, the junior single-seater journey is a simple one. You move from karts to Formula 4 and advance to Formula 3-level machinery before joining FIA F3 and, finally, F2. A select few have the talent, timing, luck, or combination of all three to ascend to Formula One.

However, navigating the feeder series pathway is a gruelling and often disappointing journey for many. After all, motorsport is not a head-to-head competition in which there’s a relatively even chance of winning or losing. By definition, if a driver is victorious in a race, all other competitors must lose. So it’s an occasion worth celebrating when a long-awaited win does come.

“It was fun, obviously,” Benavides began. “It’s good because I was coming from fifth on the grid. To haul this amount of points, and especially my first victory, it’s really positive.”

Converting that fifth-place start to a first-place finish had Benavides overcome a three-second track limits penalty for his move on Jakob Bergmeister. An equivalent punishment for second-place finisher and guest driver Lorenzo Fluxá nullified that disadvantage, but a further worry came after the flag fell. Fortunately, it was a good problem to have; he needed to learn how to spray the winner’s champagne.

“It was my first time opening a bottle of champagne. Yesterday, it was P2, so I was like, ‘Ah, you know, I don’t really have the motivation at the moment to open it.’ But today I was like, ‘Okay, I have to do it… Finally, I have to learn how to do it.’ I asked Francesco [Simonazzi], and he was kind enough to help me out. I just forgot to apply slight pressure with my thumb. It all just burst out at once, and that was it!”

Qualifying concerns

Benavides admitted that a quirk of the championship’s Dallara 320 chassis, the car’s side-mounted air intake, blighted his qualifying, with the Floridian suffering a loss of power after an unusual mechanical gremlin in the Saturday session.

“I had a really misfortunate event, which is I took off my tear-off,” he said. “I’m so used to, [as a] force of habit… [doing] it with my right hand. I throw it to the left of my helmet, and the air intake of the engine is just there.

“So it went into the air filter of the engine. Just on the main straight, I was losing a second, and everywhere in top speed, I was basically losing all the time. Otherwise, I think it would have most likely been pole position, and even by a good gap.

“But, you know, things happen for a reason. At the end of the day, with how the reverse grid structure works in this championship, maybe it was even more of a blessing than the opposite.”

Applying the virtual to reality

Benavides revealed to Feeder Series that his off-track efforts since leaving F2 also helped. F2 rival Jack Doohan suggested that he focus on iRacing simulation competition as a way to prepare for the 2024 season.

“The moment that I, as you are putting it, fell off the radar, I didn’t really have much to do. I didn’t know what I was going to do this year. I was in sort of an incognito state,” he said.

“I got into iRacing, and I used that to support myself, to maintain myself – not only racing, in qualifying… the consistency of being behind a wheel and racing with others, but also just to keep my state of mind and motivation. So I did that, and I think it was a really positive turn of events, having me get into iRacing, because I think it’s made me a better driver, and it’s really fun.

“I feel like [Euroformula] is like an iRacing race. I feel like I’m in the iRacing F3 car, and I’m racing in the same circumstances. F2 and F3 isn’t on iRacing, and this car is on iRacing. So I just copy-paste what I did. I’m literally just transferring exactly what I’m doing in the sim in real life. It’s so funny.”

Benavides will face seven more rounds of the championship in 2024 as Euroformula Open continues its season at the Hockenheimring on 11 and 12 May.

Header photo credit: Gianluca Sciarra / Fotospeedy via Euroformula Open