The second round of EuroCup-3 Spanish Winter Championship, held this weekend at Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, was a new opportunity to make progress and to improve as the team works hard to fight its way back to the top.
On February 22-23, the second EuroCup-3 Spanish Winter Championship meeting took place. Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, in Portimao, hosted a weekend where GRS was once again fighting at the lower half of the field. The driver and all team members made, however, a magnificent effort to be as competitive as possible, which will undoubtedly help us to keep improving as the season goes on.
The team took part in the race weekend with one car. The line-up from the previous event in Jerez remained unchanged. Cristian Cantú, confirmed for the full winter season, was therefore the driver racing under our banner. The Mexican rookie faced his second weekend on the series after a promising debut in Jerez.
Two pre-event test sessions, of 2 hours each, took place on Friday. ‘Conejo’ shown similar pace compared to the previous weekend: lapping around the Top 20 positions. Unfortunately, unstable weather conditions took away much testing time during the afternoon session.
Qualifying 1, held under mixed conditions as well, was a tricky one. The track was not clearly for wet nor slick tyres, so there was a decision to be made, and the position changes were constant. Cantú managed to survive the chaos and set a good lap time, qualifying in 17th position.
‘Conejo’ would therefore start both of Saturday’s races from 17th place. On the first one, the Mexican youngster managed to bounce back after a difficult start. He got back into the fight for the Top 20 until a contact with another driver forced him to drive back to the pits and retire the car, which had taken damage.
On the Sprint Race, Cantú faced difficult circumstances during the opening stage again. After finding himself at the back of the pack, the Mexican driver regained part of what had been lost to end the race in P22.
Sunday action began with Qualifying 2. There, Cantú secured 20th position on the grid for the final race of the weekend. It was another race with continuous wheel to wheel action around Cristian’s positions. He ended up seeing the chequered flag in P19.
The EuroCup-3 Spanish Winter Championship takes now a break. MotorLand Aragón will host the winter championship finale in 5 weeks: March 29-30.
