Cotterill: MP Motorsport and Verschoor combination perfect for Sprint Race success

31 May 2025

MP Motorsport made the strategy gamble pay off in the Barcelona Sprint Race as Richard Verschoor used a late race Safety Car to fit the Soft tyre, before going on to win.

The Dutch squad were running in the lower reaches of the top 10 after a difficult launch at lights out lost Verschoor a few positions.

However, after contact between the PREMA Racing teammates on Lap 18, a strategy window opened for some to take a risk of a pit stop and switch to the softer Pirelli compound.

MP were the first in the queue to make the leap, and speaking afterwards, Team Manager Jeremy Cotterill said they executed their plan well for such an eventuality.

“It’s never an easy decision but you’ve got to look at all the possibilities. He’s lucky that his engineering team are making those decisions having been evaluated.

Cotterill says the MP team executed well and their plan was made to work for a win by Verschoor

“We were where we were at that point which wasn’t great, so we boxed. The engineering team are monitoring things in the pit wall. It’s predetermined what we do if something happens at a certain time, and that changes in the race.

“If this happens then, we’ll do this. If it happens at another point, what do we do instead? That’s all part of our planning for the race and you’ve got to have a plan for everything. It worked out well in the end.”

After the race got back underway, Verschoor was flying, as he and runner-up Alexander Dunne began to clear in those on the old Hard tyres very quickly.

Cotterill joked that he was worried Verschoor’s electric pace might be at the cost of tyre life to reach the end, but after a lap, he realised the victory was on.

“I thought after half a lap ‘I hope these tyres can last to the end,” continued Cotterill. “But then after that, I would say one – one and a half laps, I thought we could do it.

“I also knew that Alexander Dunne also made the stop and that it would be a battle between the two of them.”

Verschoor's stop proved to be the race-winning strategy and he rejoined on Softs to go onto victory

The victory was Verschoor’s second of the season and came after a tough run to start the European season.

Difficult results in the first two legs of the triple-header meant that the Dutch driver fell from the lead of the Drivers’ Championship.

However, Cotterill believes that luck will even itself out over the course of the 2025 campaign, and today’s result was a sign of better things to come.

“Triple-headers are hard. In Imola he was ill. Ok there’s nothing you can do about that and after the Qualifying in Imola, I was actually happy to come away with a couple of points from the Feature Race considering where we started from.

“In Monaco, we were in an accident that had already happened. Those things can happen, that’s racing. That’s how it goes over the course of a season. I hope these things balance themselves out.

“Tomorrow is where the big points are. We start P5 and we didn’t get a great start today. So that’s something that we’ll be looking into for tomorrow, but let’s see.

“It’s a long race and there’s a pitstop tomorrow that everybody’s got to make strategy-wise. We have to wait and see for what we can dream up for tomorrow.”