Home Formula 4French F4 De Wilde beats Junior champion Pourchaire to French F4 victory at Paul Ricard

De Wilde beats Junior champion Pourchaire to French F4 victory at Paul Ricard

by Ida Wood

Photo: FFSA Academy

Ugo de Wilde held off a race-long challenge from Theo Pourchaire and Adam Eteki to win the first French Formula 4 race at Paul Ricard.

De Wilde was at his most comfortable at the start of the race, making an exceptional getaway from pole and putting a handy gap between himself and second place.

It wasn’t long before he was drawn back in by Pourchaire and Eteki, who were running nose-to-tail at one point.

In the closing laps Pourchaire tried attacking the leader, but then ended up being harassed by Eteki, often the fastest man on track. The latter squeezed through once or twice towards the end, but was only in the position for a few seconds before Junior champion Pourchaire moved back past.

This gave de Wilde some late breathing space, and he met the chequered flag with a 3.295 second advantage. Pourchaire and Eteki were split by just a quarter of a second.

The battle for fourth was relatively calm, despite the large number of cars involved, until the last few laps of the race. Paul Ricard?s plentiful run off meant that mistakes just brought more drivers into play, and champion Caio Collet ended up winning the battle on the last lap.

F4 South East Asia winner Alessandro Ghiretti came fifth, ahead of Ulysse de Pauw, Esteban Muth, Reshad de Gerus, Mateo Herrero, Theo Nouet, Pierre-Louis Chovet and Gillian Henrion.

 

Race results (10 laps)
Pos Driver Time
1 Ugo de Wilde 22m40.699s
2 Theo Pourchaire +3.295s
3 Adam Eteki +3.586s
4 Caio Collet +5.630s
5 Alessandro Ghiretti +6.442s
6 Ulysse de Pauw +6.925s
7 Esteban Muth +8.014s
8 Reshad De Gerus +8.763s
9 Mateo Herrero +9.375s
10 Theo Nouet +9.595s
11 Pierre-Louis Chovet +10.510s
12 Gillian Henrion +10.900s
13 Baptiste Moulin +15.411s
14 Romain Boeckler +23.076s
15 Baptiste Berthelot +23.888s
16 Shihab Al Habsi +36.435s
17 Evan Spenle +44.232s
18 Arthur Leclerc +1m07.202s
Ret Sacha Lehmann
Pole: de Wilde, 2m14.877s? ? ??Fastest lap: Eteki, 2m14.784s

Championship Standings
1?Collet 285.5? ?2 de Wilde 206? ?3 de?Pauw 206? ?4 Leclerc 194? ?5?Eteki 185? ?6 Chovet 137? ?7 Muth 135.5? ?8 Stuwie White 80? ?9 Nouet 70? ?10 Herrero 49

Junior Standings
1 Pourchaire 371.5? ?2 De Gerus 266? ?3 O’Neill Muth 243? ?4 Al Habsi 220.5