Jules Caranta takes French F4 points lead with Nogaro win

Photo: FFSA Academy

Jules Caranta inherited victory, and the points lead, from a penalised Yani Stevenheydens in French Formula 4’s third race at Nogaro.

Stevenheydens took pole for races one and three by topping qualifying, and converted the first of those into a win. A car issue meant he stopped straight away in the reversed-grid race two, but it proved inconsequential as red flags waved on lap three. All the action prior to that point had taken place behind the safety car, and the race distance was too short to count for points.

However the start of race three did prove costly for him, as while his car got away fine this time it did so by jumping the lights. That earned him a five-second penalty, and made his victory prospects slim in a race full of interruptions.

Tom Le Brech went off on the first lap but managed to rejoin the field at the very back, and Karel Schulz lost several places on lap two by going off while Stevenheydens built a lead over Caranta and Montego Maassen.

Yellow flags appeared at turn 12 and then the safety car appeared due to Paul Roques planting his car into the barriers, and racing reumed at the end of lap five.

Stevenheydens set fastest lap after fastest lap as he built up his lead again, and was 2.112 seconds clear of Caranta by lap eight. Maassen was unable to keep with them, and actually slipped down the order to seventh.

Rayan Caretti inherited third, and was some way behind Caretti until the safety car returned due to Pacome Weisenburger going off in a multi-car incident and Schulz spinning into the gravel at turn 11. That bunched the field back up, and with the restart not taking place until the 13th and final lap, it meant Stevenheydens was very unlikely to win.

Rayan Caretti and Taito Kato immediately challenged Caranta when racing resumed, enabling Stevenheydens to pull away slightly. There was no on-track change of position between any of them, but with Stevenheydens only meeting the chequered flag 2.229s clear it meant he was demoted to seventh place and Caranta won by 0.844s over Caretti.

Race results (13 laps)