Home Featured Barter resists Capietto to win French F4 race three at Nogaro

Barter resists Capietto to win French F4 race three at Nogaro

by Peter Allen

Photo: FFSA/KSP

Hugh Barter fended off fellow single-seater debutant Maceo Capietto to win the third and final race of the French Formula 4 curtain-raiser at the Easter Cup at Nogaro.

Both took advantage when race one winner and polesitter Esteban Masson stalled at the start, with second-place starter Barter taking the lead.

Then, as third-place starter Owen Tangavelou went to move around Masson, contact was made with Daniel Ligier that ultimately forced both into retirement.

Barter and Capietto rapidly pulled away from the rest of the pack, never separated by more than seven tenths of a second.

Fastest laps in the middle of the race from Capietto – who missed the first race of the weekend when his clutch failed on the formation lap – brought him to within half a second of Barter, where he remained for five laps unable to launch an attack.

Lock-ups from Capietto at Turn 4 and the Turn 7 hairpin with two laps to go then gave Barter a break, with the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy shootout winner claiming victory by 0.742s.

Masson ended the first lap in ninth place but fought his way back through to the podium, finishing 15 seconds behind the winner after overtaking Aiden Neate for third with seven minutes left on the clock.

Neate continued his consistent debut weekend with another junior classification win in fourth, never really challenged by fifth-placed Gael Julien. After losing ground at the start, Dario Cabanelas put a move on race two winner Thanapongpan Sutumno to take sixth.

There was contact on the last lap in the fight for eighth between Alessandro Giusti and Pierre-Alexandre Provost that sent the latter crashing into the wall.

Race results (15 laps)
Pos Driver Time/Gap
1 Hugh Barter 22m24.203s
2 Maceo Capietto +0.742s
3 Esteban Masson +15.266s
4 Aiden Neate +23.108s
5 Gael Julien +25.412s
6 Dario Cabanelas +26.032s
7 Thanapongpan Sutumno +27.686s
8 Alessandro Giusti +31.557s
9 Adam Szydlowski +31.671s
10 Noah Andy +38.314s
11 Enzo Geraci +39.937s
12 Vignesh Kadarabad +50.538s
13 Angelina Favario +50.684s
14 Pierre-Alexandre Provost +1 lap
Ret Owen Tangavelou
Ret Daniel Ligier
Fastest lap: Capietto, 1m28.820s

Championship standings
1 Masson 47   2 Barter 39   3 Neate 30   4 Julien 26   5 Sutomno 22   6 Capietto 22   7 Ligier 21   8 Giusti 20   9 Tangavelou 18   10 Cabanelas 16