Campos Racing’s Christian Ho sprung back into contention in sensational fashion in Eurocup-3’s visit to the Algarve, but a mechanical issue in race three made way for late heroics from Saintéloc’s Alexander Abkhazava.

By Juan Arroyo

What Campos hoped to be a return to form came true at Portimão over the weekend, as Christian Ho and Valentin Kluss led the team’s efforts in securing their first trophies of the year.

Ho snapped Campos’ winless streak – five races if the non-points winter round is included – with back-to-back victories. The Singaporean driver was also in the fight to complete a hat-trick before his left-rear suspension failed with just over seven minutes to go in race three.

But the ensuing chaos from the safety car restart allowed his teammate Valentin Kluss to grab a third-place finish, bringing home much-needed points for the team. It was the second of two podiums for the German this weekend, helping him maintain the lead in the rookie standings by 30 points to Ho.

Ahead, Abkhazava took advantage of Bruno del Pino’s technical difficulties, which was later revealed to Feeder Series to be a push-to-pass failure to grab the lead and get his and Saintéloc’s first victory in Eurocup-3.

MP Motorsport’s form took a hit in contrast to their Spanish rivals. Despite still occupying the top three spots in the drivers’ standings, Del Pino, Javier Sagrera and Owen Tangavelou could not match Ho’s speed across the weekend – managing a podium each and additional top ten finishes.

The Campos driver is now only 13 points behind the trio, which is tied at the top with 80 points each.

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

Are Campos’ woes over?

Portimão was the bright weekend Campos needed after a relatively dim start to their season. Up until then, the team had achieved no podiums, while suffering a multitude of technical failures that took them out of points-paying positions at Spa and Spielberg.

This was the first event in which Ho went trouble-free for most of the weekend. The pace he had previously shown, but could not be translated into results, finally turned into two victories.

But while these have sprung the Singaporean back into title contention in the meantime, Campos still have to watch their cars closely – a suspension failure near the end of race three brought an end to Ho’s hopes of a record hat-trick in the series. Still, overall, reliability was the least of the Spanish team’s issues over the weekend.

Kluss also seems to have found his stride in Portugal. The German driver initially struggled to acclimatize to “softer” brakes on the Eurocup-3 car, which required him to modify his input style. However, despite having a best finish of sixth after Spielberg, he remained confident in his ability to fight inside the top three when speaking to Feeder Series ahead of the weekend.

Kluss achieved the first pole position of his career on Sunday, followed by second and third-place finishes in race two and race three respectively.

During the aforementioned interview, the German driver mentioned that MP Motorsport not having tested at the circuit previously would have an impact on results, and that Ho would be able to fight for victories “as he’s the quickest driver on the grid at the moment.”

Campos reduced the gap to MP in the teams’ standings to 60 points with Ho, Kluss, Michael Shin, and Noah Lisle’s contributions over the weekend. The team has been to every remaining venue on the calendar with Eurocup-3 machinery except Circuit Paul Ricard. Reliability notwithstanding, Campos can fight.

Michael Shin’s performance in race three should also be highlighted. Starting 9th, the Korean driver’s rear-left wheel caught Joao Diaz’ front-right into Turn 1, sending Shin rearwards into the adjacent run-off. Despite dropping to 23rd on the first lap, he made it to sixth by the chequered flag. Nine of those overtakes came on the lap of three separate safety car restarts.

What happened at the end of race three?

Ho’s suspension failure in the closing stages of race three set up a final-lap melee between Del Pino, Abkhazava, and Sagrera.

Abkhazava and Sagrera went behind Del Pino for slipstream on the main straight, and both made easy work of the latter as his push-to-pass failed – leaving him plummeting to sixth place by the time they reached Turn 1. Abkhazava then pushed Sagrera slightly wide before the uphill trek into Turn 4 as the Spanish driver attempted to take the lead.

As the leaders went into the second sector, chaos ensued behind: Isaac Barashi was spun round into Turn 3, and Diego de la Torre spun close behind a few seconds later. José Garfias was pushed wide into the same corner and dropped from fifth to 10th, before spinning into Turn 5 with a puncture.

Though Sagrera followed closely for the rest of the lap, Abkhazava pulled away just enough to prevent him from challenging for the lead, taking the chequered flag by just 0.219s.

Del Pino’s push-to-pass failure allowed Kluss to move up into third by the chequered flag, while he was left to settle for fourth place and the fastest lap.

Abkhazava has cemented himself as the best of the rest after three rounds, being the only driver outside MP and Campos to stand on the podium besides Kirill Smal. He is fifth in the standings, 17 points behind the leading trio of Del Pino, Sagrera, and Tangavelou.

Why were there three races this weekend?

After the cancellation of race two at Spa – as well as practice and qualifying – Eurocup-3 organisers decided to move the race to Portugal, allowing full points to be scored. The grid was decided by each driver’s second-fastest lap in qualifying for race one.

The format used was similar to Spanish F4’s, which does the same to set the grid for the shorter race two, while the starting order for the other two races is determined through separate standard qualifying sessions.

Where is the next race?

Circuit Paul Ricard will host Eurocup-3 for the fourth round of the championship on July 5–7. It will be the series’ first ever visit to the French circuit, with Spanish F4 on the support bill over the weekend.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency