Photo: Diederik van der Laan / Dutch Photo Agency
Dino Beganovic has been excluded from second place in the second Formula Regional European Championship race at Paul Ricard last weekend after his car was found to be non-compliant.
The Prema driver passed Gabriel Bortoleto to move from third to second on the opening lap of the race and then was able to attack ART Grand Prix’s Gabriele Mini for the victory following a late safety car restart.
He couldn’t manage it, but second place did continue a run of eight consecutive top-two finishes that has now been undone by his exclusion. Prema, however, is appealing his removal from the race results.
Provisionally it now leaves Ferrari junior Beganovic with a 45-point lead over Mini, with R-ace GP’s Hadrien David a further eight points behind and meaning he would not be able to surpass Beganovic in the championship standings until July’s Hungaroring round.
Paul Aron, Beganovic’s Prema team-mate, is 59 points back and nine ahead of Kas Haverkort (Van Amersfoort Racing) and Michael Belov (MP Motorsport) who are the only two other drivers who have scored at least half of the points that Beganovic has this year. Were he a team, he would have scored more points than all but Prema, ART and R-ace.
Haverkort and Aron are the two main beneficiaries of the race two exclusion as they have provisionally been moved up to second and third place in the race classification, with David now the driver who just misses out on a podium result.
Trident’s Tim Tramnitz gets promoted to 10th, earning his fourth points finish of the season.