It was a drama-filled Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race on Saturday morning, with PREMA Racing’s Louis Sharp, James Wharton and José Garfias all making progress through the field from difficult starting positions.
The race was shaped by a first lap collision between championship rivals Ugo Ugochukwu and Freddie Slater at Les Combes, which brought out the Safety Car and left Slater out of the race. Racing resumed on lap four and Nakamura took the lead. He controlled the race from the front despite a second Safety Car on lap ten before crossing the line for his maiden victory.
For PREMA, the race was one of recovery from the back of the field following the penalties that had dropped all three drivers deep into the order. Sharp made the most progress, working his way through to 13th after some strong overtakes around the outside at Eau Rouge on the opening lap.
“Unfortunate to get the penalty this morning, starting a few places back than we were supposed to in p17,” commented Sharp. “I made an average start but made up some good places up on lap one, did a couple of really good overtakes in Eau Rouge around the outside and then settled into the race.
“I think we had good pace, we showed some good speed but with all the all the safety cars and not many racing laps it was hard to make much of a difference so hoping for a cleaner race tomorrow and to limit the safety cars if that’s possible.
“I’m looking forward to going again and I think we’ll be able to come through.”
Garfias came home 19th, with all three drivers finding their progress limited by the multiple safety car periods that reduced the number of green flag racing laps available in a short race. Wharton crossed the line in 16th, however following some post race penalties for track limits, was classified 27th.
The Feature Race gets underway at 08:30 local time tomorrow.
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