Thai racer Sandy Stuvik became the 2014 EuroFormula Open Formula 3 champion one round ago at Italy’s Monza Circuit, but the integrated Spanish Formula 3 Championship was still undecided, so when Stuvik flew to pole position for last Saturday’s first race, he was one point closer to also taking the Spanish title.
In the race, the Thai driver shot off into the lead and immediately started pulling away from the pursuing Formula 3 cars as he has done so many times this season. He would remain unchallenged for the entire race and took the checkered flag 6 seconds ahead of second placed Alex Palou and third placed Yarin Stern.
Stuvik again showed the form that in 2014 has brought him the EuroFormula Open Formula 3 Championship and the Spanish Formula 3 Championship titles.
With 1 point for pole position, another point for the fastest lap of the race and 25 points for the race victory Stuvik had a combined 106 points lead over Palou’s 78 points, which saw the Thai racer also taking the Spanish Formula 3 Championship.
The qualifying session for Sunday’s second race became tougher for Stuvik, as he struggled with his tires and could only qualify for 4th starting position. This broke the Thai driver’s impressive record run of six consecutive pole positions in the Formula 3 series.
Thai racer Sandy Stuvik stands atop the podium after winning the Spanish Formula 3 race at the Barcelona racetrack in Spain, Saturday, November 1.
The final race of the season became all about strategy, as the focus shifted towards who would take the second place in the championship. The battle stood between Poland’s Janosz and Spain’s Palou and in the end, as Janosz overtook Stuvik for 4th place, he secured the runner up place in the championship by only 1 point. Thus the Italian RP MotorSport team took both first and second places in the championship.
Concluding the EuroFormula Open season, Sandy Stuvik with 332 points overall took a record 10 pole positions and won 11 of the 16 races. As part of the prize for winning the Formula 3 championship he was invited to conduct a test in a Renault 3.5 Series car at Aragon’s Motorland Circuit in Spain on 3-4 November.
“This car is the closest to GP2 and I will take this opportunity as preparation and comparison for the GP2 car, which I will test a little later in Abu Dhabi after the F1 event there. The WSR 3.5 series car runs a 3.5 liter Renault V8 engine which produces 530 HP and I know from last year’s test, that this is a challenging car to drive. However, the WSR is together with GP2 the best platform to reach Formula 1 from, so I am excited for this test,” said Stuvik.
