Photo: KSP Reportages
Arthur Dorison took his first two pole positions in French Formula 4 during the sole qualifying session at Ledenon on Friday.
The half-hour session was the culmination of two days of track action, with Thursday being filled by pre-event testing.
A 1m22.150s benchmark was set by Montego Maassen in the first session, and 0.166 seconds behind in second place was Louis Iglesias.
Only 0.018s slower than him was Guillaume Bouzar, whose pace was even worse in session two but he topped the times with a 1m22.655s lap. Iglesias was second again, this time trailing by 0.245s and with a 0.032s gap to Jules Roussel in third.
The pace was lowered in session three, and Rayan Caretti was on top for a long time with a 1m21.414s lap. But late on Alexandre Munoz was able to outpace him by 0.017s to snatch top spot.
Malo Bolliet was only 0.071s off Munoz in third, and 0.177s covered the top six. Most set their best laptimes fairly early in their run plans, and 10 drivers beat Maassen’s old benchmark.
A 1m21.536s put Bouzar on top again in session four, but fifth overall, and he had a 0.319s gap to Caretti. Munoz was 0.372s off Bouzar’s pace in third, and Maassen broke the 1m22s barrier in four.
Maassen improved to 1m21.866s in session five to climb to 10th overall and be the long-time leader on the session timesheet until Bouzar beat him by 0.034s with his last lap. Munoz, Caretti and Dorison also peaked early on in third, fourth and fifth.
Friday morning practice featured a far faster pace, and a second covered the top 15 drivers. Maassen went quickest with a 1m20.925s lap, and Iglesias joined him in lapping sub-1m21s late on with a lap just 0.013s slower than his own.
Rafael Perard was third, 0.23s off Maassen, and Roussel trailed by 0.37s in fourth. Just 0.018s split him, Bouzar and Dorison, while championship leader Munoz was 0.499s off the pace in seventh.
Qualifying was a half-hour session in the afternoon, and in that time half of the 30 drivers had laptimes deleted for track limits abuse.
Dorison prevailed in the battle for pole with his 14th lap of 20, posting a 1m21.349s to head Roussel by 0.076s. They had toppled Munoz, whose 1m21.458s was the time to beat early on.
Iglesias was also within 0.2s of pole, and a late improvement meant Caretti took fifth from Bouzar by 0.001s. In turn, Bouzar had earlier on demoted Maassen one spot by 0.008s and Bolliet by 0.038s.
American debutant Jack Iliffe, winner of the WSK Euro Series for OK Junior karts last year, was 2.452s off pole in 28th place.
Dorison earned another pole with his second-best laptime, again by small margins. A 1m21.467s earned him first place on the grid by just 0.004s over Roussel, with Iglesias and Bolliet 0.154s and 0.182s off pole respectively.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Arthur Dorison 1m21.349s
2 Jules Roussel +0.076s
3 Alexandre Munoz +0.109s
4 Louis Iglesias +0.189s
5 Rayan Caretti +0.260s
6 Guillaume Bouzar +0.261s
7 Montego Maassen +0.269s
8 Malo Bolliet +0.299s
9 Rintaro Sato +0.475s
10 Rafael Perard +0.513s
Race 3 grid
1 Dorison 1m21.467s
2 Roussel +0.004s
3 Iglesias +0.153s
4 Bolliet +0.182s
5 Munoz +0.203s
6 Caretti +0.211s
7 Maassen +0.355s
8 Bouzar +0.376s
9 Sato +0.480s
10 Romeo Leurs +0.482s