Gounon secures Magny-Cours hat-trick

Photo: DPPI

Jules Gounon picked up his third victory of the Magny-Cours French F4 round after a late-race mistake from leader Matevos Isaakyan allowed the Frenchman to cruise to victory.

While Tom Le Coq started the race from pole position, he simply wasn’t quick enough to stay in contention for victory. Instead, it was Gounon who took the lead on lap one, looking set complete his weekend hat-trick.

However, on lap four, Gounon surrendered first place to Isaakyan, with the Russian quickly building up a safety gap to second place. It didn’t look like anyone could match Isaakyan, but the Russian wound up making a mistake on the penultimate lap that cost him the win.

As such, Gounon picked up yet another win at Magny-Cours, with championship leader Anthoine Hubert taking his weekend-best finish in second. Neal van Vaerenbergh rounded out the podium, with Isaakyan recovering to fourth.

Marco de Peretti was fifth, ahead of Felix Hirsiger. Tom Le Coq originally finished seventh, but was later demoted to 19th due to his participation in multiple incidents during the race.

Thus, Simo Muhonen, Dennis Anoschin, Kirill Karpov and Amaury Rossero rounded out the top ten.

In the standings, Hubert now leads Gounon by 147 points, with 160 available over the next two race weekends.

Race results

* Le Coq received 30 seconds of added time post-race