Photo: Williams F1
The Formula Regional Europe teams were back in action at Paul Ricard for the first day of their second post-season test and Prema’s Alp Aksoy and R-ace GP’s Oleksandr Bondarev topped one session apiece.
MP Motorsport’s Dries Van Langendonck was again consistently among the fastest drivers on track, briefly topping the times in the morning and then finishing second, just 0.058s behind Bondarev in the quicker afternoon session. The McLaren junior actually set the fastest sector times in both the middle and final sector but had been over two-tenths slower than the Williams man in the first sector.
Bondarev’s R-ace GP team-mate Kenzo Craigie was another to continue his impressive pace from Hockenheim, setting third-fastest time of the day, again in the afternoon
Aksoy was the first driver into the 1m58s in the morning session before being pushed back by Van Langendonck with a 1m58.834s lap, with CL Motorsport’s Reno Francot took over at the top of the times. However, the Turkish driver headed out once again in the closing minutes to set the fastest time of the session.
Miguel Costa was an impressive second in the morning session, just ahead of team-mate Francot, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Scott Lindblom again featuring at the front.
There were some new faces and some absentees compared to last week’s Hockenheim test. FIA Formula 3 driver Fionn McLaughlin joined Keith Doneghan’s RPM team with Anglo-Spaniard Edu Robinson slotting in at Prema in the car shared by Tomass Stolcermanis and Saqer Almaosherji in Germany.
Alexandre Munoz was back in the cockpit at ART Grand Prix after making way for Taito Kato in the afternoon session at Hockenheim, although interestingly he and Matteo Giaccardi appeared to have swapped numbers compared to their usual 2026 mounts.
Van Langendonck flew the MP colours alone, as neither Kasper Schormans nor Rocco Coronel were present due to the conflicting Spanish Formula 4 test.
Van Amersfoort Racing’s Fernando Rivera was the only driver not to break the two-minute barrier, despite completing more laps than anybody else, 85.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time (AM) | Time (PM) | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oleksandr Bondarev | R-ace GP | 1m58.750s | 1m58.296s | 73 |
| 2 | Dries van Langendonck | MP Motorsport | 1m58.691s | 1m58.354s | 56 |
| 3 | Kenzo Craigie | R-ace GP | 1m58.637s | 1m58.432s | 61 |
| 4 | Alp Aksoy | Prema Racing | 1m58.454s | 1m59.126s | 69 |
| 5 | Miguel Costa | CL Motorsport | 1m58.502s | 1m58.521s | 79 |
| 6 | Reno Francot | CL Motorsport | 1m58.545s | 1m58.698s | 73 |
| 7 | Scott Lindblom | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m58.599s | 1m58.851s | 67 |
| 8 | Alexandre Munoz | ART Grand Prix | 1m58.717s | 1m58.634s | 72 |
| 9 | Pedro Lima | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m58.976s | 1m58.701s | 63 |
| 10 | Bernardo Bernoldi | Rodin Motorsport | 1m59.730s | 1m58.761s | 62 |
| 11 | Yuki Sano | R-ace GP | 1m59.253s | 1m58.795s | 67 |
| 12 | Oscar Repetto | G4 Racing | 1m59.207s | 1m58.873s | 69 |
| 13 | Alex Ninovic | Rodin Motorsport | 1m58.898s | 1m59.195s | 74 |
| 14 | Ary Bansal | Trident Motorsport | 1m59.193s | 1m59.020s | 67 |
| 15 | Dominik Simek | Trident Motorsport | 1m59.565s | 1m59.089s | 65 |
| 16 | Matteo Giaccardi | ART Grand Prix | 1m59.095s | 1m59.153s | 73 |
| 17 | Alisha Palmowski | Rodin Motorsport | 1m59.556s | 1m59.151s | 62 |
| 18 | Oleksandr Savinkov | Prema Racing | 1m59.152s | 1m59.549s | 66 |
| 19 | Rahim Alibhai | G4 Racing | 1m59.476s | 1m59.201s | 66 |
| 20 | Andre Rodriguez | RPM | 2m00.145s | 1m59.333s | 82 |
| 21 | Fionn McLaughlin | RPM | 1m59.442s | 1m59.363s | 76 |
| 22 | Edu Robinson | Prema Racing | 1m59.246s | 1m59.374s | 70 |
| 23 | Ludovico Busso | Trident Motorsport | 1m59.376s | 1m59.783s | 74 |
| 24 | Zhao Zijun | G4 Racing | 2m00.703s | 1m59.388s | 78 |
| 25 | Alexander Chartier | CL Motorsport | 1m59.600s | 1m59.441s | 75 |
| 26 | Thibaut Ramaekers | ART Grand Prix | 1m59.460s | 1m59.598s | 74 |
| 27 | Emily Cotty | RPM | 1m59.857s | 2m00.520s | 74 |
| 28 | Fernando Rivera | Van Amersfoort Racing | 2m01.294s | 2m00.343s | 85 |