The Spaniard entered the weekend with a slim five-point lead over Peruvian Andres Cárdenas. After Saturday's opening race was canceled due to heavy rain, the MP Motorsport driver only had to hold out a couple of laps behind the safety car on Sunday to claim his first title, 22 points ahead of second classified.
RACE 1
Torrential rain on Saturday forced us to abandon all hope for Race 1 after a couple of laps behind the safety car, so Race 2, on a fortunately bright and sunny Sunday morning, became Race 1. And Peebles made the most of the his advantage of being at the top of the standings.
Starting well from pole position he took the lead at the first corner, but a collision soon occurred in the middle of the pack, with Ella Lloyd and Edouard Borgna finding themselves in the gravel at turn 2. Lorenzo Castillo also had to be recovered later on in turn 4, while René Lammers also avoided going out at the next corner, when the safety car was called into action.
The race resumed on lap five with Peebles ahead of championship rival Cárdenas by Gianmarco Pradel, who moved up from seventh on the grid. But Pradel missed out on the podium when, at the start of the eleventh lap, he ended up in the gravel at Turn 1, triggering another safety car stoppage.
The track was quickly cleared to allow the race to resume with less than four minutes out of the scheduled 30, with Peebles once again ahead of Cárdenas.
The following lap Douwe Dedecker had contact with Matheus Ferreira sending the latter into the gravel at Turn 2, which resulted in the third appearance of the safety car as the race time expired.
This gave Peebles a 15-point lead over Cárdenas heading into the final race of the season.
“I made a perfect start, I created a small gap and I didn't need to defend myself – said Peebles – I only concentrated on normal trajectories and on preserving the tyres, because this track has a very high degradation”.
“We had a lot of safety cars, the first one was very long and we had one just before the end, then luckily another one came in. I'm very happy with the result, good points for the championship, but there's still a race to the death.”
Ernesto Rivera took the final step of the podium for Campos, while MP Motorsport's Maciej Gladysz consolidated his third place in the championship in fourth place. Reno Francot (US Racing) and Lucas Fluxa (MP) completed the Top6.
RACE 2
Nathan Tye (Campos) started the final race of the season from pole position, but Peebles, alongside him, took the lead at Turn 1 and put himself in the ideal position to secure the title, in a race once again characterized from interruptions with safety cars.
On the third lap a couple of cars, including Borgna (Jenzer) went into the gravel. Peebles, leading ahead of Nye, Cárdenas and Flavio Olivieri, who would have been penalized for an early start, successfully negotiated the restart on lap seven, but almost immediately had to deal with the familiar rear bumper of the Nissan SC, when Matheus Ferreira was slammed into the wall by Jan Przyrowski exiting Turn 5.
There were only six minutes remaining when Peebles managed to overtake Cárdenas again at turn 1, but the race was stopped again due to Arthur Dorison (Jenzer), who got stuck at the first turn. The race ended with two sprint laps and Peebles kept his cool on the restart to complete the job.
“It was a difficult last race, because we had three safety cars again and I had to do something different on the restarts – said Peebles, who will now dedicate himself to the Spanish F4 championship – The initial start wasn't the best, but I caught Tye at the first corner and there were three of us, and from there I tried to manage the gap and the restarts with the safety cars.
“The team gave me a fantastic car, I was fast all weekend in the dry and I'm very happy to have brought it home. Finally I can relax and celebrate.”
#FWS #Double #Peebles #Barcelona #Champion
