He claimed victory in Saturday’s two races, the first one in particularly dominant style, and then kept his nose clean in a chaotic finale on Sunday. He rose from 12th on the partially reversed grid to fourth and, with pre-race points leader Louis Sharp among those in strife, took the championship initiative as a result.
Kucharczyk claimed his third pole position of the year with a record-breaking lap in qualifying, though JHR’s John Bennett earned pole for race two, the grid for that contest formed by each driver’s second quickest times.
Despite a damp track, race one was a relatively straightforward affair for Kucharczyk, who led every lap and gently built a lead, finishing 1.8 seconds ahead of Bennett, with Sharp taking third for Rodin Motorsport.
The result actually extended the Kiwi’s points lead over team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu, who finished fourth, ahead of the second Hitech car of Will Macintyre and the VRD Racing by Arden entry of Noah Ping.
While the race two result was broadly the same, with the top-five being a carbon copy of the earlier event, Kucharczyk had to work much harder for his second triumph. On a now largely dry circuit, he had two goes at snatching the lead from Bennett across the opening tours, before making a move stick around the outside of Les Combes on lap three of seven.
It was a perfectly timed manoeuvre as seconds later the safety car was deployed with two cars stranded. A good restart came to nothing when the race was neutralised for a second time after Ping and Elite’s McKenzy Cresswell came to blows at La Source, and the race ended under caution. Bennett was second, having held off an earlier challenge from Sharp.
That result moved Kucharczyk into second place in the standings, but his rise up the order in the finale put him top of the pile. Macintyre’s third win of the year ensured Hitech claimed a clean sweep across the weekend, while the team has now won six on the trot.
Macintyre went from fifth on the top-12 reversed grid to victory after passing team-mate Gerrard Xie, who finished second, while Ping survived a skirmish with Sharp and Ugochukwu to earn third.
The trio battled hard for the final podium spot and it ended with a collision at Bruxelles as Ping went for the inside. The Rodin drivers both retired, while Ping picked up a five-place grid penalty for his next event.
That and further dramas ensured there were three safety car appearances during the race, but Kucharczyk still managed his impressive rise to fourth, a result that gives him a nine-point lead at the top of the standings over Macintyre, as the Hitech duo capitalised on Sharp’s misfortune.
“It’s the best weekend I’ve had so far in the championship,” was Kucharczyk’s summary. “I’m super happy to have got the championship lead, we’ve been working so hard with Hitech to make that car fast, and it really was.”
Report by Richard Randle. Want more reports from the world of national motorsport? Subscribe today and never miss your weekly fix of motorsport with Autosport magazine
