After three days of torrid weather, the weekend in Barcelona ended with storms on Sunday, and it was precisely the rain that Race 3, and maybe kept the title battle alive. After a frustrating weekend up to that point, Michael Shin could score a dominant win, the fourth of the season, and maintain the suspense for the title battle up to the last round in Monza.
The Korean driver of Motopark gambled with the choice of when to pit and change tyres, and won. “I had nothing to lose”, he said afterwards, “and it worked well, so now we can go to Monza with more chances”. Shin retains second in the standings, 23 points behind Tymek Kucharczyk (BVM Racing), who finished seventh. By taking fifth, the other Motopark title contender, Yevan David, also remains in the race for the title, 28 points behind the leader.
race started with Theo Micouris (Nielsen Motorsport) on pole in the reversed grid, and the British-Cypriot kept control of everything from the start behind the safety car up to lap 7. Most of the drivers were on wet, but some chose to change. The first one to do so was Shin, at the end of lap 1 and when the safety car was still on track, and the move paid off. By lap 7, the Korean had made up the gap, and he took the lead, crossing the line with a huge gap (1m23s), which was useful as he got a 30-second penalty after the race for having overtaken a rival under SC regime when going into the pits. David and Barrichello were other protagonists to change tires, but too late, while De la Torre crashed against the pitlane wall when attempting to do so.
Eventually, Micouris retained second, conquering a superb podium in his EFO debut, ahead of Joss Garfias (Motopark) and Alessandro Famularo (BVM Racing). Fernando Barrichello (Motopark) finished sixth ahead of Kuchrczyk, Ed Pearson (Nielsen), and Everett Stack (Motopark), who struggled throughout the race.