Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine

Race 1

The race starts with Grégoire Saucy in pole. Behind him Hadrien David (R-ace GP), extremely competitive, but a little far from the poleman in terms of best lap time in qualifying 1 (1:57.787 versus 1:58.179). Third on the grid is the new entry coming from FIA F3, Mikhael Belov (JD Motorsport), extremely fast in finding the right confidence with the new car. Fourth is Gabriele Minì (ART Grand Prix), definitely improving race after race. Fifth is the “Barbados Ambassador” Zane Maloney (R-ace GP), who after the success in Race 2 in Monaco has almost become a hero of the entire country. Fifth is the always fast Finnish driver, Patrick Pasma (KIC Motorsport).

At the end of the formation lap, unfortunately, Isack Hadjar, after his great win in Monaco, has to start from the pit lane as he has some technical problems with the car. As he is already on the grid a second formation lap procedure is needed.

At the start Saucy is extremely quick so David actually loses immediately some meters and in no way can he attack the Swiss driver. Behind Belov is also fast as Minì, but positions do not change.

Still during lap 1, the two teammates of Van Amersfoort Racing, Lorenzo Fluxa and Mari Boya, come to contact and their race ends. Finally, no driver will be considered completely responsible for the accident. Safety car enters on track. The launched restart does not see any change in the first positions, as Saucy is extremely concentrated and makes no mistake.

Immediately, a great battle between Andrea Rosso (FA Racing) and Paul Aron (Prema Powerteam) start, with the Italian protecting 14th position. This battle goes on for almost the entire race, but the Estonian will finally not be able to overtake Rosso.

Isack Hadjar from the last position is a fury and overtakes several drivers, quickly coming up to 27th positions, while Belén Garcia (G4 Racing), unfortunately, goes wide in a curve and hits the floppies positioned after the curb, totally destroying the front wing of her car.

Six minutes plus one lap to the end Elias Seppanen (KIC Motorsport) makes a great move on Oliver Goethe (MP Motorsport) and overtakes him.Another great overtake comes later from Pietro Delli Guanti (Monolite Racing) on Gabriel Bortoleto (FA Racing).

A few moments later Axel Gnos (G4 Racing) hits his teammate Alessandro Famularo from behind and both are out. Race direction will indicate the total responsibility of Gnos and the driver will lose 3 positions on the grid in Race 2. The safety car enters the track and brings the whole group to the end of the race.

Saucy passes first the finish line but he will be disqualified later on because of a technical irregularity. It will be David to win in front of Belov, Minì, Maloney, Pasma, Alex Quinn, not as fast as he usually is, Kas Haverkort (MP Motorsport), Thomas Ten Brinke (ART Grand Prix), William Alatalo (Arden Motorsport) and Dino Beganovic (Prema Powerteam).

The standings of Race 1 in Paul Ricard change due to the disqualification of Grégoire Saucy, his car not being compliant with the technical regulations. A sad situation after the great driving by the Swiss driver of ART Grand Prix. 

The final standings see all driver behind Saucy move up one position, so the winner is Hadrien David (R-ace GP), followed by Mikhael Belov (JD Motorsport, and Gabriele Minì (ART Grand Prix).

Race 2

In Race 2 Grégoire Saucy (ART Grand Prix) is in pole position, while on his side is his first opponent on the Circuit Paul Ricard, Hadrien David (R-ace GP). In the second row are the two fastest Rookies in the start of the season, Gabriele Minì (ART Grand Prix) and Isack Hadjar (R-ace GP). In row 3 we find the F3 driver, the Russian Mikhael Belov (JD Motorsport), and at his side a fast William Alatalo (Arden). Behind the two, the Italian couple Andrea Rosso (FA Racing) and Pietro Delli Guanti (Monolite Racing), while to close the top ten on the grid are Patrick Pasma (KIC Motorsport) and Zane Maloney (R-ace GP).

Unfortunately, in the formation lap David makes a mistake and stalls, the group passes all by and he is then obliged to start from the pit lane.

At the start, Saucy is not perfect, while Minì has an amazing leap and is quickly side to side with his teammate, but doesn’t just quite manage to overtake. Behind Hadjar has a slow start, so Belov and Alatalo manage to pass and conquer respectively the third and fourth position, while the French driver of R-ace GP ends up fifth.

Behind, Rosso is in sixth position, in front of Pasma, who in the first lap is attacked and overtaken by Maloney, thanks to a great move of the driver from Barbados.

Soon, unfortunately, Minì slows down and loses positions until he exits the track in the pit lane with technical problems to the engine.

The race sees an amazing battle between Hadjar and Alatalo, the first trying to conquer back what he lost at the start, and driving at his best with great moves, but with the Arden driver always being completely focused and making no mistake till the end of the race.

In the meantime, a huge recovery by David takes place, with the French driver gaining quickly positions one after the other and already 19th from last after only ten minutes of race. His will be an extraordinary race that will bring him up to the final ninth position, 26 positions up, with just the drop of one position declared by Race Direction due to a too optimistic maneuver causing a collision with Tomas Ten Brinke in the last lap.

In the battle between Alex Quinn (Arden), in tenth position, and Paul Aron (Prema Powerteam) in eleventh, it is the Estonian who makes a mistake and hits the car of the English driver who spins and loses a great number of positions. Aron will be penalized with 10 seconds added to the total race time, which will finally relegate him down to the 26th position.

In the last laps, an accident caused by Nicola Marinangeli (Arden) requires the entry of the safety car for one lap, so all drivers have the chance with a launched restart and one lap to gain more positions. One of these is David who overtakes Dino Beganovic (Prema Powerteam) first, and then he is very aggressive and overtakes Ten Brinke but, as already anticipated, this overtake will be cancelled with the drop of one position for the French driver.

Finally, Saucy wins with practically no one able to really compete with him. Behind Belov, Alatalo, Hadjar, first of the Rookies, then Rosso, Maloney, Pasma, Vidales, David and Ten Brinke, whose positions will be sapped after the penalty to the French. Beganovic, eleventh but gains one point thanks to the fact that Beloc does not participate to the championship general standings.

Saucy: “I am really happy and here I was the fastest. This demonstrates that the issue with my car yesterday and consequent disqualification had nothing to to with my great performance. We have worked hard with the team and all the people around me before the season and these are the results. Evidently I aim to win the Championship.”

Belov: “I am pleased and had fun this weekend. The car was good even if not totally perfect to be first but it has been a great experience.”

Alatalo: “After a tough start of the season with the team, finally we have found the right direction and definitely this is a great result. It has been hard to keep my position due to the fact that our speed is not yet 100%, but we are almost there.”

After Paul Ricard round, general standings see Saucy still first and gaining distance with 110 points, second Maloney with 87, third and first of the Rookies Hadjar (85), fourth David (81), fifth Quinn (78) and sixth Aron (72).

The next round (5) will be held in Zandvoort on the 19th of June.

Spanish Formula 4 Championship

Race 1

Quique Bordas takes advantage of the start to win his first victory in Navarra

The Spanish Formula Champions driver took his first win of the season after overtaking Dilano Van’t Hoff at the start of the race, who, despite a bad start, finished in second position.

World Championship leader Dilano Van’t Hoff is still on the podium. The Dutch MP Motorsport driver, who has four podiums in a row, took another podium that allows him to maintain his lead over his rivals, who did not have a great day.

The other Formula of Champions driver Daniel Maciá did not have a good start and just like at Spa Francorchamps he was stuck at the start. Maciá, who will have a chance to redeem himself again tomorrow from third position, started as one of the favourites for this first long race but had to settle for eleventh position after being relegated to eighteenth on the first lap.

It wasn’t the day of Alex Dunne either, another of the protagonists in Spa. The Irishman, who finished fourteenth, didn’t have his best qualifying and got stuck inside the group, where all the drivers were affected by the dirty air in the second sector, preventing them from reaching the third sector and, therefore, the main straight, where we saw most of the overtaking. A similar situation to that experienced by Pepe Martí, who could only finish twelfth.

Georg Kelstrup managed to get back to the front of the field despite starting from outside the front rows of the grid. The Danish MP Motorsport driver once again made a great start, taking second place after the first corner. However, his strong pace in the opening laps of the race ended up wearing his tyres too much, losing second place to teammate Dilano Van’t Hoff in the closing laps of the race.

Despite Ryabov’s exit from the track, the safety car did not come onto the track for the first time this season, thus preventing the group from compacting. Quique Bordas took advantage of this situation to increase his margin with the chasing group to more than a second.

After the race, Quique Bordas was happy and wanted to thank all his team for their work, “I made a good start and I was first. The pace I had throughout the race was really good. I managed to conserve tyres and ride at a good pace. I want to thank the whole team for this victory, they have supported me a lot and we deserve to celebrate this victory”.

Race 2 & 3

Quique Bordas and Dilano Van’t Hoff win on day two in Navarra

The importance of starting on the odd-numbered side of the grid was once again evident in the second race. The vast majority of the drivers in the most favourable zone for the first corner came back to the fore on the first lap, as was the case with Dani Maciá. The Spanish Formula of Champions driver, who started from third position, took advantage of the slipstream of his teammate Quique Bordas, poleman of the race, to strangle in the first corner a Dilano Van’t Hoff who was forced to go off the track, being relegated to fifth position. Noah Dengbol also took advantage of his teammate’s bad start to move up to third.

Dani Maciá’s good start allowed him to put his teammate in trouble during the first lap, threatening the first position of Quique Bordas. A fight that, however, could only last for twelve corners, the time it took for the safety car to reappear on track. An incident between several cars at the back of the grid left Santiago Trisini out of the race after he was unable to avoid two cars that were in the middle of the track after having touched a second before.

With the group compact and just five minutes to go, the race was restarted and a five-minute sprint ensued in which the three leading drivers had a comfortable lead over their closest pursuers. Even championship leader Dilano Van’t Hoff was unable to keep up with the two Formula Champions cars and his teammate Noah Degnbol, who was on the podium for the first time this season.

After more than two hours of rest, the action returned to the circuit with the second of the long races in Navarra. A third race in which, as in the second, Quique Bordas defended his first position from the attacks of Dilano Van’t Hoff and Noah Degnbol until the safety car came out with a pace that no driver could follow. A two-second lead over the chasing group vanished with seven minutes to go before the end of the race.

An accident of Georg Kelstrup, who was riding from the back of the grid after an engine failure in qualifying, forced the safety car to come out for the second time this weekend, reducing the lead achieved by Quique Bordas, who had distanced himself by more than two seconds from the chasing group.

It was after the restart when the Spanish Formula of Champions driver, who had once again built up a solid lead to take the win, suffered an engine failure that forced him to retire from the race, thus losing his chances of having won all three races held this weekend.

A breakdown gave Dilano Van’t Hoff a free run for his third win of the season, extending his lead at the top of the championship, where he is the clear leader with five podiums in six races.

His closest challenger in the standings before the second round, Pepe Martí, made a mistake in qualifying which relegated him to 20th position on the grid, a situation which the Spanish Campos driver managed to overcome with a great comeback to ninth place, scoring his first two points of the weekend. Also making a great comeback in the second feature race of the weekend was Daniel Maciá, who started from tenth position and was just outside the podium after making five on-track overtakes, including a duel with Oliveira before he was involved in an accident with Ryabov.

At the end of the second race, Dilano Van’t Hoff wanted to highlight the work of Quique Bordas throughout the weekend, acknowledging his great pace in all the races. “Today we were lucky, Quique was going to win the race, he had a better rhythm and he had done a great job during the whole weekend. Races are like that, I am very happy to take my third win and extend my lead in the championship. In Portimao I hope for at least a top three finish in every race, it would be a good weekend”.

The next round (3) will be held in Portimao on July 17th and 18th.