Garrett Berry wins after crash chaos in French F4’s reversed-grid Pau race

Photo: Ida Wood

Garrett Berry won French Formula 4’s crash-filled second race in Pau, which featured a lengthy red flag stoppage.

Pol Lopez made a strong start from reversed-grid pole, but on a bumpier side of the grid could do little to stop Garrett Barry passing him for the lead. Further behind there was a three-car clash at turn one which sent points leader Evan Giltaire and Hiyu Yamakoshi into retirement at turn two and left Leonardo Megna limping around the track before he too retired in the pits.

There were double-waved yellow flags at turn two when the drivers came through again, with Lopez driving around with his front wing hanginf off on one side and with Enzo Peugeot and Yani Stevenheydens close behind him.

Lopez and Peugeot almost made contact going into the Foch chicane on lap three, as Berry pulled away by two seconds. That gap was then reduced to nothing as the safety car was called out following a huge crash at turn one next time by.

Lopez’s front wing came off on the pit straight and bounced across the track – being collected by several drivers – while his car slammed into the outside barriers at turn one, immediately set on fire as the rear wheel assembly detatched then spun several times before coming to a stop at turn two.

Double-waved yellows that were shown as quickly as possible, but that actually caught out some drivers as they slowed. Paul Alberto ran into the back of and then briefly over the top of Adrien Closmenil on the right-hand side of the track, with Closmenil then wiping out Kevin Foster, and Jason Leung was eliminated on the left.

Red flags were shown at the end of the lap, and the race was stopped for 55 minutes as there was a lengthy recovery proccess of the seven cars that had crashed as well as the requirement to put down powder all the way from turn one to turn two due to the fluid that had leaked from Lopez’s split chassis.

The safety car led the field through the first two laps of the restart, then set the pack free.

Peugeot immediately started attacking Berry, at multiple corners on the track, and almost made contact twice. Stevenheydens ran right behind waiting for the pair to make a mistake but there was none.

At one point Peugeot had to pull out of a move when they encountered double-waved yellow flags at turn nine after Andrei Duna had crashed out in an incident with Romain Andriolo, and on the penultimate lap Peugeot got alongside Berry through the first two corners.

He had to settle for second and eating into Giltaire’s points lead, while Berry celebrated victory.

Race result (15 laps)