CUPRA’s Mattias Ekström maintained his championship advantage in PURE ETCR on Saturday, as the Swede won his head-to-head battle and then bagged pole position for his title-deciding SuperFinal at Circuit Pau-Arnos.
Round 2 – Head-to-head battles
The Pool A battle winners from Friday, Mikel Azcona and Augusto Farfus, went head-to-head for the first two-car battle on Saturday morning.
Azcona made the better start and led early on, with Farfus nibbling at the back of the CUPRA for the first lap as he sought to make use of 300 kw of power to find a way past the Spaniard.
The closest the Hyundai driver came was at the final corner, but with Azcona planted on the inside line, Farfus couldn’t get through and Azcona only just held on for the win.
The second battle, between Friday’s second-place finishers Oliver Webb and John Filippi, saw Filippi leap into the lead after a better start on the outside line, but Webb was back into the lead after taking a tight line through Turn 9.
From there, Filippi didn’t come back at Webb and the Alfa Romeo driver took a straightforward win in the second battle.
The final Pool A head-to-head was between CUPRA’s Dániel Nagy and Romeo Ferraris’ Luca Filippi. The Italian Alfa Romeo driver beat Nagy off the line and it was a straightforward battle win thereafter, as Nagy circulated easily a second behind for the duration of the three lap head-to-head.
In Pool B, battle winners Mattias Ekström and Jordi Gené from CUPRA went up against each other. With Ekström having a clear championship advantage, there was effectively no contest, with Gené slotting in to second at the very start and later admitting that the session was in part about “training for the qualifying session”. Ekström ultimately went on to win the battle with ease.
The next battle, between Hyundai’s Jean-Karl Vernay and Romeo Ferraris’ Rodrigo Baptista, saw Vernay just hold on to the lead through the first chicane, having started on the inside line.
For the next two laps the Frenchman maintained a comfortable gap over the Brazilian to ease to the battle victory.
Finally, Romeo Ferraris’ Philipp Eng and Hyundai’s Tom Chilton went head-to-head. Eng easily claimed the lead at the start, and the Austrain remained in front thereafter, unchallenged by the chasing Brit.
The result of the battles keep the championship in largely the same position as on Friday. Ekström, Vernay and Azcona all scored 12 points on Saturday for winning their respective battles, so the margin from Ekström to Vernay remains at 34 points and a further point adrift is Azcona. Having lost his battle, Gené is now formally out of contention.
No points are awarded for the time trials, utilising the full 500 kW of power, which decide the grid for the Pool A and B SuperFinals respectively. In Pool A, Farfus claimed the fastest lap, half a second ahead of Nagy. Webb was third, ahead of Luca Filippi, Azcona, who made an early mistake on his lap, and John Filippi.
In Pool B, Ekström put himself in the best position to claim the inaugural PURE ETCR title with a lap which was a mere 0.091 seconds faster than Eng, with Vernay in third ahead of Chilton, Baptista and Gené.
The track action resume on Sunday with SuperFinal A at 14:20 CEST (13:20 BST), followed by the title-deciding SuperFinal B at 17:30 CEST (16:30 BST).