Francot and Van Langendonck fastest as FREC tests continue in Austria

Photo: ACI Sport

Reno Francot and Dries Van Langendonck headed the times as Formula Regional Europe began its third and final post-season test at the Red Bull Ring.

CL Motorsport’s Francot, returning to the scene of his only win of the season back in April, was fastest in the morning by 0.170s ahead of Van Langendonck for MP Motorsport, with the positions reversed in the afternoon session, as the McLaren junior nabbed the top spot by just 0.078s.

All but four of the 30 drivers set their best times in the morning, with Francot’s lap almost four-tenths faster than his best qualifying lap during the FREC race weekend back in April.

The Dutchman lowered the best time three times in the space of six minutes halfway through the session to finish on 1m26.262s.

Behind him were two regular names from the post-season testing results, MP Motorsport’s Dries Van Langendonck and R-ace GP’s Kenzo Craigie.

Craigie set his best lap on only his 11th tour after only 35 minutes of running and remained at the top until usurped by Francot’s run. Van Langendonck left his fastest run until later in the session, before setting a time of 1m25.432s to slot in between Craigie and Francot.

Miguel Costa took fourth for Rodin Motorsport ahead of Oleksandr Bondarev for R-ace GP and ART Grand Prix’s Matteo Giaccardi.

Rocco Coronel and Kasper Schormans were back in action for MP after missing the Paul Ricard test, finishing the morning in seventh and eleventh positions respectively, while Edu Robinson, having moved across to ART Grand Prix headed the team’s third car piloted by Thibaut Ramaekers in eighth and ninth.

Rodin’s Alex Ninovic rounded out the top 10 having been the pacesetter in the morning’s early laps.

RPM boasted two new names alongside Emily Cotty, as Spanish and CEZ Formula 4 midfielder Felipe Reijs and Alpine junior Kabir Anurag replaced Fionn McLaughlin and Andre Rodriguez.

Tomass Stolcermanis was out with CL Motorsport, having had a run with Prema at Hockenheim, while Ty Fisher, currently 11th in Spanish F4, joined Alp Aksoy and Oleksandr Savinkov in the Italian team’s cars. Aksoy found himself back in 18th on his first visit to the circuit.

Tom Ingram-Hill, a race winner in GB4, was slowest of all on his first run out with G4 Racing.

The G4 Racing pair of Ingram-Hill and Rahim Alibhai set the early pace in the afternoon before Francot got into his stride to go top 40 minutes in. After Van Amersfoort Racing’s Scott Lindblom and Schormans had taken a turn at the top of the times, Van Langendonck pulled out a lap in 1m25.730s with just 15 minutes left to end the session at the head of the timesheets.

A brief red flag, the third of the day, interrupted running, giving the drivers a final six minute window at the close and Francot was obviously keen to finish on top again. However, his very last lap of the day was only good enough for second, less than a tenth shy of the McLaren junior out front.

Schormans finished the afternoon in third, with Lindblom, one of the few to improve after the lunch break, in fourth.

G4 Racing’s Zijun Zhao was the only driver to record more than 100 laps in the day, finishing on 107.

The FREC teams and drivers have their last day of post-season testing tomorrow.