Photos: Ida Wood
Reigning French Formula 4 champion Esteban Masson was fastest on day two of Formula Regional European Championship post-season testing at Paul Ricard.
The Winfield Racing School-organised test featured 20 FREC runners, and Masson set the pace straight away in the morning for R-ace GP.
His 1m58.310s lap put him 0.269 seconds ahead of Arden’s Joshua Duerksen, and neither were able to improve on those laptimes but remained in the top two positions.
Masson also went fastest in the second session of the day, setting a 1m58.843s that was just 0.029s faster than G4 Racing’s Victoer Bernier.
ART Grand Prix’s Gabriele Mini and R-ace duo Lorenzo Fluxa and Francesco Pizzi also broke into the 1m58s in the morning, and in the first afternoon session Bernier and Mini improved in third and fourth overall.
Mini went even faster again in the final session, but it was still three tenths of a second short of Masson’s morning benchmark.
Sami Meguetounif was the fastest MP Motorsport driver in seventh, ahead of Arden’s Leonardo Fornaroli who rose up the order in the final session after losing running earlier in the day to a gearbox issue.
Test results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Esteban Masson | R-ace GP | 1m58.310s | 55 | |
| 2 | Joshua Duerksen | Arden | 1m58.579s | +0.269s | 75 |
| 3 | Gabriele Mini | ART Grand Prix | 1m58.617s | +0.317s | 62 |
| 4 | Victor Bernier | G4 Racing | 1m58.699s | +0.389s | 70 |
| 5 | Lorenzo Fluxa | R-ace GP | 1m58.865s | +0.555s | 61 |
| 6 | Francesco Pizzi | R-ace GP | 1m58.902s | +0.592s | 58 |
| 7 | Sami Meguetounif | MP Motorsport | 1m59.066s | +0.756s | 65 |
| 8 | Leonardo Fornaroli | Arden | 1m59.154s | +0.844s | 60 |
| 9 | Christian Mansell | R-ace GP | 1m59.245s | +0.935s | 57 |
| 10 | Tim Tramnitz | ART Grand Prix | 1m59.348s | +1.038s | 46 |
| 11 | Santiago Ramos | KIC Motorsport | 1m59.368s | +1.058s | 70 |
| 12 | Owen Tangavelou | G4 Racing | 1m59.458s | +1.148s | 70 |
| 13 | Nicolas Baptiste | FA Racing by MP | 1m59.556s | +1.246s | 69 |
| 14 | Joshua Dufek | ART Grand Prix | 1m59.556s | +1.246s | 63 |
| 15 | Dilano van’t Hoff | MP Motorsport | 1m59.558s | +1.248s | 71 |
| 16 | Roman Bilinski | Arden | 1m59.626s | +1.316s | 61 |
| 17 | Matias Zagazeta | ART Grand Prix | 1m59.985s | +1.675s | 67 |
| 18 | Axel Gnos | G4 Racing | 2m00.213s | +1.903s | 62 |
| 19 | Nerea Marti | FA Racing by MP | 2m00.660s | +2.350s | 56 |
| 20 | Abbi Pulling | FA Racing by MP | 2m01.473s | +3.163s | 53 |
| 1 | Aiden Neate | F4 | 2m06.331s | 61 | |
| 2 | Nikhil Bohra | F4 | 2m06.557s | +0.226s | 62 |
| 3 | #18 | Winfield Racing School | 2m15.300s | +8.969s | 31 |