May 02, 2019

 

Team Rookie Monsters dominated in Portugal as Yuri Kasdorp led home a team one-two at Algarve International Circuit, Ewan Gale reports.
Matthew Beavis executed a stunning alternate-strategy to take a comfortable second, after pulling off three overtakes in the final stage of the race.

Erhan Jajovski overcame a grid penalty and some mid-race aggression to take a brilliant third in his Idos Motorsport entry.

After various grid penalties had shaken the qualification times up, it was the two TRM cars that started from the front row of the grid, with Beavis getting the jump into turn one.

Argo Teder made a blistering start to move up to seventh, but would have an incident a lap later and eventually retire from the race. Ben Hamlet in his first race at Abruzzi ACR retired after a collision at turn five.

The fast starting Chris Shepherd had made his way up to third in the opening stanza of the race, and was looking comfortable until two separate spins on lap 17 would push him down to fifth.

Kasdorp and Beavis were playing a team game up front, letting each other by down the main straight on multiple occasions.

Jajovski and Kevin Ryan fought over the third position vacated by Shepherd, the two colliding door-to-door for half a lap before the Macedonian finally fought his way past the Abruzzi ACR to take the position.

Beavis was first to pit on lap 32 and rejoined in 11th. When his teammate and Jajovski pitted a lap later, they opted to take less fuel than the Englishman and opened up a massive gap. At the end of the pit window, Beavis was twenty seconds down on the race lead, but ten seconds and three cars down from his second place.

After catching Moriz Mehl on lap 36, it took Beavis four laps to extinguish the gap to the Idos in second and made the crucial move look easy as he swept past Jajovski.

Even though Beavis was much faster, Kasdorp nursed the car home to take victory in Portugal.

Shepherd recovered from his early spins to overtake the GOTeam Racing of Mehl (P5) and Ryan (P6) in the final stages to take fourth in his TCS McLaren, with Joonas Raivio in the second Idos in seventh, Nico Barclay's TCS in eighth, Mike Bell in his Smile Power car ninth and Tobias Olsson rounding out the top ten for GOTeam.

Bart de Vos, Scott Sovik, Ryan Elliott, April Carlsvard and Eralp Kumartaslioglu complete the top 15.

Kasdorp's victory means that the gap between himself and Jajovski is extended to eighteen points, with Raivio a further seventeen back. Beavis climbs to fourth in the standings courtesy of his second place.

Team Rookie Monsters leapfrog Idos Motorsport to take the lead in the constructors standings.


Full race results: HERE.