Home Formula RegionalFRegional European Championship Aron fastest in wet and dry Paul Ricard practice

Aron fastest in wet and dry Paul Ricard practice

by Roger Gascoigne

Photo: Diederik van der Laan / Dutch Photo Agency

Prema’s Paul Aron headed both Formula Regional Europe free practice sessions on Friday, one in the wet and one in the dry.

The wet morning session started with ART Grand Prix’s Mari Boya, Gabriele Mini and Laurens van Hoepen setting the early pace, half a minute off the dry pace from 2021.

R-ace GP’s Lorenzo Fluxa brought out the first red flag of the day with most of the field having just three or four laps on the board. The session restarted with 34 minutes remaining although track conditions meant that nobody was able initially to approach Boya’s pre-stoppage time of 2m23.588s.

Championship leader Dino Beganovic moved up to second with a laptime over 1.3s adrift of Boya’s mark, with Pietro Delli Guanti also splitting the ART GP runners, 0.14s behind the Ferrari junior.

Green and purple sector times began to appear in the final 10 minutes with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Levente Revesz and the Arden duo of Noel Leon and Dudu Barrichello taking turns in the top five.

In the final five minutes Prema’s drivers moved to the front. Beganovic went top with a 2m22.732s, with rookie team-mate Sebastian Montoya jumping to second, before both were eclipsed by Aron and a 2m22.562s lap.

However, surprise frontrunner Revesz was able to improve his time as one of the last to take the chequered flag to split the Prema pair with a 2m22.604s.

Monolite Racing’s Maceo Capietto repeated his strong wet weather pace from Imola to go fourth fastest on his penultimate lap, just 0.180s behind Aron. Title contenders Hadrien David and Mini were down in 17th and 19th respectively.

Multiple laptime were deleted for track limits infringements, with Boya, Beganovic, Michael Belov, Mini and Delli Guanti among those to be penalised.

The drier conditions of FP2 in the afternoon meant the pace was considerably quicker, with Mini the first driver to lap sub-2m00s.

His 1m59.636s lap stood as the best until Aron set a 1m59.325s with 17 minutes to go, and that ended up being the fastest lap of the day. Belov also bettered Mini, by 0.020s.

Fluxa and Nicolas Baptiste were among those who had laptimes deleted for track limits violations, while Revesz – second fastest in FP1 – was only 30th in FP2. However Mini and David were third and fifth fastest this time.

Free practice results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Paul Aron Prema 1m59.325s 25
2 Michael Belov MP Motorsport 1m59.616s +0.291s 27
3 Gabriele Mini ART Grand Prix 1m59.636s +0.311s 23
4 Pietro Delli Guanti R-P-M 1m59.783s +0.458s 32
5 Hadrien David R-ace GP 1m59.854s +0.529s 28
6 Mari Boya ART Grand Prix 1m59.884s +0.559s 29
7 Matias Zagazeta G4 Racing 1m59.926s +0.601s 28
8 Gabriel Bortoleto R-ace GP 1m59.970s +0.645s 26
9 Dino Beganovic Prema 1m59.985s +0.660s 24
10 Dudu Barrichello Arden 2m00.000s +0.675s 29
11 Sebastian Montoya Prema 2m00.081s +0.756s 31
12 Joshua Dufek Van Amersfoort Racing 2m00.089s +0.764s 23
13 Lorenzo Fluxa R-ace GP 2m00.117s +0.792s 17
14 Laurens van Hoepen ART Grand Prix 2m00.330s +0.825s 30
15 Owen Tangavelou G4 Racing 2m00.415s +0.852s 32
16 Esteban Masson FA Racing by MP 2m00.488s +1.005s 33
17 Tim Tramnitz Trident 2m00.630s +1.090s 32
18 Joshua Duerksen Arden 2m00.636s +1.193s 28
19 Noel Leon Arden 2m00.664s +1.305s 32
20 Kas Haverkort Van Amersfoort Racing 2m00.728s +1.311s 21
21 Piotr Wisnicki KIC Motorsport 2m00.753s +1.339s 21
22 Santiago Ramos KIC Motorsport 2m00.728s +1.403s 33
23 Leonardo Fornaroli Trident 2m00.753s +1.428s 36
24 Roman Bilinski Trident 2m00.764s +1.439s 28
25 Maceo Capietto Monolite Racing 2m00.880s +1.555s 32
26 Sami Meguetounif MP Motorsport 2m00.902s +1.577s 33
27 Nicolas Baptiste FA Racing by MP 2m01.012s +1.687s 25
28 Pietro Armanni Monolite Racing 2m01.028s +1.703s 30
29 Axel Gnos G4 Racing 2m01.191s +1.866s 18
30 Levente Revesz Van Amersfoort Racing 2m01.208s +1.883s 30
31 Victor Bernier FA Racing by MP 2m01.209s +1.884s 32
32 Keith Donegan R-P-M 2m01.247s +1.922s 22
33 Hamda Al Qubaisi Prema 2m01.411s +2.086s 30
34 Francesco Braschi KIC Motorsport 2m01.487s +2.162s 30
35 Cenyu Han Monolite Racing 2m02.052s +2.727s 31