Photo: Roger Gascoigne
Williams junior Alessandro Giusti took his first victory of the season in a chaotic Formula Regional European Championship race at Paul Ricard.
The ART Grand Prix driver made a storming restart after a mid-race safety car period to pass poleman Rafael Camara for the lead and calmly avoided the hectic action in his wake to win by 3.1 seconds from Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu.
“Amazing! It was difficult in the wet but we did a good choice with the set-up, we were quite fast at the start, I took the opportunity to pass Tuukka [Taponen] and Brando [Badoer] in the first corner, then Michael [Belov] in T3, and then managing the gap after the restart.” Giusti told Formula Scout after the race.
“I saw that [on the restart Camara] was not that fast, so when Ugo overtook him I saw that I needed to push more and the gap was fine.”
After heavy rain before the race, the safety car led the field for the first three laps. Camara made a strong on lap four while Giusti was flying from the third row, taking Trident’s Michael Belov for second into turn five. G4 Racing’s Kanato Le also passed Belov, and behind them Badoer spun as he tried to get past Taponen.
That meant the safety car returned on lap five, and Giusti nailed the following restart, immediately pressuring Camara and diving past into turn one. Enzo Deligny spun this time, but racing was not interrupted.
Camara was unable to fight back, instead coming under pressure from team-mate Ugochukwu who had cleared Le on lap nine.
Next time around, the McLaren junior was on Camara’s tail out of the chicane, looking for a way past at Signes before making the move stick at turn 11.
Camara was clearly struggling and lost more ground, while Race Performance Motorsport’s Noah Stromsted took the final podium spot from Le.
On the final lap, ART GP’s Evan Giltaire attacked Camara into the chicane but was unable to turn in and cut the chicane, emerging in front but electing not to cede the position to his rival.
Camara lost a further place to Deligny on the final run to the chequered flag, leaving him a disappointed seventh.
Zachary David, Nikhil Bohra and Ivan Domingues rounded out the top 10.
Race result (12 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alessandro Giusti | ART Grand Prix | 33m24.298s |
| 2 | Ugo Ugochukwu | Prema | +3.104s |
| 3 | Noah Stromsted | R-P-M | +4.603ss |
| 4 | Kanato Le | G4 Racing | +6.933s |
| 5 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | +9.595s |
| 6 | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | +11.255s |
| 7 | Rafael Camara | Prema | +11.288s |
| 8 | Zachary David | R-ace GP | +16.588s |
| 9 | Nikhil Bohra | MP Motorsport | +18.132s |
| 10 | Ivan Domingues | Van Amersfoort Racing | +19.271s |
| 11 | James Wharton | Prema | +20.019s |
| 12 | Giovanni Maschio | R-P-M | +20.499s |
| 13 | Valerio Rinicella | MP Motorsport | +23.301s |
| 14 | Doriane Pin | Iron Dames | +23.352s |
| 15 | Theophile Nael | Sainteloc Racing | +23.378s |
| 16 | Matteo De Palo | Sainteloc Racing | +26.300s |
| 17 | Niko Lacorte | Trident | +26.932s |
| 18 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | +26.981s |
| 19 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | +27.794s |
| 20 | Edgar Pierre | R-P-M | +28.138s |
| 21 | Marta Garcia | Iron Dames | +28.549s |
| 22 | Alex Sawer | KIC Motorsport | +31.340s |
| 23 | Lena Buhler | ART Grand Prix | +31.646s |
| 24 | Enzo Peugeot | Sainteloc Racing | +32.750s |
| 25 | Alvaro Cho | G4 Racing | +33.057s |
| 26 | Yujia Gao | KIC Motorsport | +34.513s |
| 27 | Romain Andriolo | G4 Racing | +34.693s |
| 28 | Isaac Barashi | MP Motorsport | +35.264s |
| 29 | Yaroslav Veselaho | ART Grand Prix | +38.256s |
| Ret | Michael Belov | Trident | |
| Ret | Brando Badoer | Van Amersfoort Racing | |
| Ret | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | KIC Motorsport | |
| Ret | Tuukka Taponen | R-ace GP | |
| Fastest lap: Stromsted, 2m19.854s
Championship standings |
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