It was another weekend of positives for Tony Quinn Foundation Ambassador Zack Scoular, who lined up for Round 4 of the 2025 Eurocup-3 series at Monza over the weekend.
While the final results weren’t quite what he was hoping for, there were plenty of encouraging signs across the weekend.
Zack arrived in Italy looking to build on his season-best result last time out in France, where he finished 15th in the Sprint Race and showed strong signs of progress throughout the weekend.
He got his first laps at the iconic Monza circuit during Friday testing, showing good form from the outset. Zack finished 17th in the first session with a best time of 1:47.953, set just after the halfway mark, completing 30 laps in total.
In the second test session, he wasn’t quite able to match his earlier best, clocking a 1:48.836 as his fastest lap.
Next up was Free Practice on Saturday, with the field facing wet conditions for the final session before qualifying. Zack showed promising pace in the changeable conditions, finishing 20th and second of the Palou Motorsport cars.
Qualifying 1 followed with the track back to dry conditions, and Zack again showed good speed in the #6 car.
He was sitting just outside the Top 10 before a red flag interrupted the session, but traffic on his next attempts prevented further improvements, leaving him 17th at the end, once again the second of the Palou Motorsport cars.
However, Zack, along with five other drivers, received a five-place grid penalty, dropping him to 22nd for the start.
Race 1, as often is the case at Monza, saw chaos at the opening chicane with several cars running off or making contact. Zack kept his nose clean and continued in the fight, but unsurprisingly, the safety car was deployed before the end of the opening lap to clear the incidents, with Zack sitting in 19th at the time.
On the restart, Alessandro Famularo behind got a strong run and made his way past into Turn 1, followed later in the lap by Alexander Abkhazava. At the same time, Garrett Berry went off, bringing out another safety car with Zack now in 20th.
The race went back to green with just under 12 minutes remaining, and once again, there was chaos at Turn 1, which Zack navigated cleanly to move into 17th. A few corners later, another safety car was deployed, with Zack now up to 15th.
With just over two minutes left on the clock, the race restarted. Abkhazava was able to get by before Zack was caught up in an incident at the final corner heading onto the penultimate lap with Oscar Wurz and Luciano Morano, leaving the Kiwi stranded in the gravel and out of the race.
It was a tough end to what had been a strong, forward-moving drive.
On Sunday morning, the team did a great job of repairing the car in time for Qualifying 2. However, Zack was sent out at a questionable time, leaving him without a tow, which cost him over a second per lap compared to his teammates.
He still managed a 1:47.924 on his final lap, but it left him 23rd on the grid for Race 2, when he should have been well inside the Top 15. It shows just how crucial having the tow is at a place like Monza.
After Saturday’s chaos, Zack was determined to keep it clean at the start. From 23rd, he made a good launch and was up into the Top 20 by halfway around the opening lap.
He held position until Lap 4 when Alessandro Famularo and Kacper Sztuka managed to get through, dropping Zack back to 22nd.
A lap later, Zack regained 21st after Maciej Gladysz fell back, with Zack continuing to keep Famularo in sight as he fought on the fringes of the Top 20. Ultimately, he brought the car home in 22nd to round out the weekend.
While it wasn’t the weekend Zack would have hoped for, it was another promising performance, showing clear progress as he moves closer to that first points finish of the season.
The series now has a one-month break before the second half of the season kicks off with Round 5 at TT Circuit Assen in the Netherlands over August 8-10.
Header Image: Supplied
