Leclerc wins Paul Ricard race three to close on FREC points lead

Arthur Leclerc won the third and final race of the second round of the 2020 Formula Regional European Championship season at Paul Ricard.

Leclerc vaulted past his slow-starting pole-sitting Prema team-mate Gianluca Petecof to seize the race lead on the run down to Turn 1 on the opening lap.

Leclerc came under pressure in the opening laps from Red Bull junior Juri Vips, who rose from fifth on the grid to second on the first lap.

Ferrari junior Petecof fell to fourth position but quickly dispatched team-mate Oliver Rasmussen on the second lap to move into third place.

Petecof then closed onto the back of Formula 2-bound Vips and passed the KIC Motorsport driver as Leclerc increased his advantage out front.

Brazilian racer Petecof moved to within one second of his team-mate Leclerc, but never got close enough to wrestle the race lead as Leclerc took his third win of the year to reduce his team-mate’s championship lead.

Vips fell away from the leading duo and was forced to settle for his second-consecutive third-place finish of the weekend.

Rasmussen had a sloppy race with a number of off-track moments that demoted him to fifth place but he passed Pierre-Louis Chovet around the outside of Turn 8 to move back into fourth position.

The Danish ace faced intense pressure from KIC Motorsport’s Patrik Pasma but held the Formula Renault Eurocup graduate off to claim fourth place.

Pasma finished in fifth place ahead of his team-mate Konsta Lappalainen, who earned his best result of the season in sixth position.

After shining early in the race, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Chovet fell to seventh place at the chequered flag ahead of his single-seater returnee team-mate Facu Regalia, Prema’s Jamie Chadwick and Frenchman Gillian Henrion.

Race results (17 laps)