The organizing committee of Eurocup-3, after the unfair allegations made in different media and on social media regarding what happened at the start of the 2024 season at SpaFrancorchamps, wants to clarify the following:
Race 1 of the 2024 Eurocup-3 season held at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on May 19thstarted behind the Safety Car (SC) due to adverse cold and rainy weather conditions, ensuring at least 3 complete laps for cars’ spray to allow visibility for other drivers and to increase tyre temperatures before removing the SC and safely restarting the race. This process also involves radio feedback from both the Safety Car driver and teams through their drivers.
Once the SC returned to the pitlane, the race resumes under normal conditions with a wet track but very light rain. Minutes later, the rain becomes heavier, especially in sector 1 of the circuit, where car 64 from the Drivex team goes off-track and collides with tyre barriers and tec-pro on the outside of Turn 2. Due to this incident, a yellow flag is waved between Turn 2 and Turn 3, and the driver’s condition is checked with track officials and via radio.Shortly after, under the same yellow flag conditions mentioned, car number 10 from PalouMotorsport collides with the tire barrier a few meters ahead (at Turn 3), with the car ending up off-track (in the run-off area) but with some debris on the track. At this point, double yellow flags are shown at Turn 2 and Turn 3, and as the rain worsens, becoming very heavy in sector 1 with both cars off-track needing quick recovery from the incident area, the Race Direction deploys the red flag to end the race under those conditions. All cars are instructed to proceed to their pits at reduced speeds and with maximum safety.
Eleven seconds after the red flag is shown, car 20 goes off-track at Turn 3, colliding with car 10 sideways (which was already stopped from its earlier incident), causing serious damage to both vehicles. The medical team then conducts the driver’s extraction tasks from the vehicles.
To conclude, it’s important to note that teams were continuously informed about track conditions, which were right to compete until the red flag was displayed and all the procedures were followed correctly at all times.
The Race Director and assistant held a meeting with drivers to discuss improvements for future situations, and both the promoter, the Spanish Federation, and the teams themselves are investing significant time and money in installing a dashboard marshalling system to have real-time electronic flags on their cars’ steering wheels soon.
