Giusti holds off Meguetounif for birthday FREC victory at Red Bull Ring

Photo: FRECA

Alessandro Giusti celebrated his 17th birthday in style, by taking his second Formula Regional Europe win of the season for G4 Racing at the Red Bull Ring.

After seeing off an early challenge from Prema’s championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Giusti established a comfortable advantage of over two seconds ahead of MP Motorsport’s Sami Meguetounif in the race’s first half.

However, Meguetounif began to reel in his fellow Frenchman in the final laps, closing onto his tail but never quite getting with striking distance to challenge for the lead.

Antonelli made the best getaway to dive to the inside of Giusti into the first corner, forcing the polesitter to run wide and then rejoin the track at unabated speed.

On the climb to Remus, Antonelli, Giusti and Meguetounif were three abreast with Antonelli trying to get inside of Giusti while Meguetounif was unable to slow down enough as he tried to attack on the outside, running very wide through the asphalt run-off.

The battle continued downhill into turn four with Giusti emerging ahead of Meguetounif. Antonelli got held up slightly by Meguetounif, allowing R-ace GP’s Martinius Stenshorne to challenge around the outside.

The two title protagonists ran side-by-side through turns four and five before Stenshorne made the move stick on Antonelli around the outside of the turn six left-hander.

In the midfield, KIC Motorsport’s Maya Weug made contact with ART Grand Prix’s Marcus Amand at turn three, eliminating the latter on the spot and bringing out the safety car at the end of lap one.

Following the restart, Antonelli was initially able to put pressure on Stenshorne before dropping back and finishing fourth.

Sainteloc Racing’s Esteban Masson had been the biggest gainer at the start, jumping up from 11th to fifth. He was then able to hold off the Trident pair of Nikhil Bohra and Own Tangavelou to the finish.

Santiago Ramos stalled from third on the grid and was lucky not to be hit. Ramos did eventually get going way down the field but called it a day after nine laps.

R-ace GP’s Tim Tramnitz was another to stall, dropping from eighth to 16th. Tramnitz disposed of Monolite Racing’s Hadrien David, who had been given to two-place grid penalty for contact with Michael Belov in qualifying, but was unable to make up ground on the top 10.

G4 Racing’s Michael Belov, who had been hit by both David and Giovanni Maschio in qualifying, managed to finish 11th from 17th on the grid. Belov did manage to get past Trident’s Roman Bilinski briefly to take the final points position but Bilinski retook the position into turn four.

Race one winner Rafael Camara was forced into retirement after just two laps, and Weug was another retiree.

A number of drivers – including Stenshorne and Antonelli – were shown the black-and-white flag for exceeding track limits, and Stenshorne being investigated for a start procedure infringement.

Race results (21 laps)