Alexandre Munoz grows French F4 lead with another Dijon win

Photo: FFSA

Alexandre Munoz extended his French Formula 4 points lead by winning race three of the weekend at Dijon.

It was a lights-to-flag success, although there were some tight moments. Jules Roussel passed Montego Maassen for second on lap one, and stuck with Munoz.

He attempted to pass him around the outside of turn one on lap four, then again on lap five and this time remained alongside through the esses until they got to turn five at the top of the hill. That bunched up the top seven, then the train became even longer on lap six as the safety car appeared due to Angelina Proenca going into the gravel after an incident with Annabelle Brian and rolling her car as one side of it dug in.

Racing resumed on lap eight, and Munoz swerved on the way to turn one to fend off Roussel. Further back, Lisa Billard spun.

Although Roussel set the fastest lap on lap nine, and nine seconds covered the top 19, Munoz was the faster of the two victory contenders and began to pull away in the race’s second half. His fourth win from six races came by 2.759 seconds, and Maassen was a further 3.6s behind.

There was an entertaining battle for fourth between Rafael Perard, Guillaume Bouzar and Arthur Dorison.

Perard started fourth, but he and Bouzar fell behind Dorison on lap one. Bouzar overtook Perard on lap two, and on lap 14 they swapped places again as Perard sold Bouzar the dummy at turn one by picking the outside line then tucking to the inside to get ahead.

Three laps later he was on the tail of Dorison, who weaved down the pit straight in defence lap after lap until Perard dived down his inside at turn one on lap 19. Perard ran away after that, and finished on Maassen’s tail. Bouzar was unable to get past Dorison, and finished 26th after crashing on the final lap.

Andy Consani, Rintaro Sato and Malo Bolliet were the three drivers behind them at first. Matteo Giaccardi cleared Bolliet on lap two. Bolliet got back on lap 12, as Sato heaped pressure on Consani. Eventually he broke his defences on lap 15, going to his inside at turn one and sticking alongside through the esses then getting ahead at turn 15. However there was no gain of position for him, since Giaccardi had swept around the outside of both at the first corner too.

There were starring drives from Rayan Caretti and Louis Iglesias, who started 29th and 30th. Iglesias was at the back due to a penalty after qualifying 10th, but he charged up to 13th and Caretti made it to 10th.

Annabelle Brian got a 10s penalty for overtaking at the safety car restart and was classified two laps down after pitting for a new front wing following late contact with Niccolo Pirri, Shen retired on the final lap after his rear-right tyre spectacularly delaminated on the pit straight and sent him off.

Race results (22 laps)