Egozi Takes Second Victory of 2026 Season at Portimão
- therookiereporters
- Jun 8
- 2 min read
A second win from James Egozi for his 2026 campaign at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in a chaotic Race 1.
The race saw a perfect start from Rene Lammers who took the race lead. Into the second lap it was James Egozi who got ahead of Lammers, however Alex Powell got hit by El Feghali and spun off track, but managed to recover and rejoin in 16th. Double yellows were waved at Turn 3 after a driver lost a front wing which ended up in the middle of the track.
Egozi was doing everything possible to increase the gap between himself and Lammers and used the poor start from Al Azhari as a catalyst to do so. Following the incident between Powell and El Feghali, Powell decided to pit, meaning his car sustained too much damage to continue. Ean Eyckmans’ seems like he has had a mechanical failure after coming to a halt in Sector 1, a devastating finish to his race. The marshals managed to move Eyckmans’ car without triggering a safety car.
Six laps in, some drivers began getting issued with track limits warnings, including - Fiorentino, Harrison and Beckley. Egozi managed to pull 1.7s clear of Lammers. During Lap 8, it was the car of Tommy Harfield that spun, triggering a first safety car for the race. The green flag restart came on Lap 10 but saw Strauven collide with his teammate Heuzenroeder but it was Strauven who went off at Turn 1 triggering another safety car and joined the retirement list for this race.
Green flags were waved again, with two laps of racing remaining, Lammers overtaking El Feghali for second place.
A sensational first race at Portimãofor James Egozi, taking his second win of the 2026 campaign, with Lammers and El Feghali who took the remaining podium places.
Alex Garcia spoke with race winner James Egozi after the race.
AG - “We find ourselves with a second time race winner here in 2026. James, that wasn’t too bad was it?”
JE - “No, it was very good, started towards the front with P5, knew I could fight from there. The car has been going mega fast. Everyone from Palou and Prema had been doing amazing work, just giving myself an opportunity to fight at the front and capitalise on mistakes from others.”
Article written by Ria Wiktor ©️ Ria Wiktor 2026
