Peugeot bags two poles in disrupted French F4 qualifying at Ledenon

Photo: Enzo Peugeot

Enzo Peugeot was fastest in a heavily disrupted French Formula 4 qualifying session at Ledenon.

Hiyu Yamakoshi was quickest at first, setting a 1m28.515s, then five minutes in Evan Giltaire went to the top with a 1m22.358s.

He topped the timesheet for only half a minute before Kevin Foster set a 1m22.235s, and a minute after that Romain Andriolo lowered the pace to 1m21.909s.

Enzo Peugeot got within 0.178s of Andriolo, then Foster went 0.076s faster but had his lap deleted for track limits abuse and so Andriolo returned to top spot.

Giltaire reduced Andriolo’s advantage to 0.095s eight minutes into the 25-minute session, and nine-and-a-half minutes in Foster went quickest again with a 1m21.715s while Peugeot set a 1m21.775s.

Andriolo improved to 1m21.792s in third place before red flags waved and stopped qualifying for six minutes.

There was four minutes of track action following the restart, with the session clock frozen during the stoppage, before red flags waved again as Leonardo Megna beached his car in the gravel at turn three.

There was a seven-minute stoppage, and drivers still had eight minutes to improve their pace when the second restart occurred. But little over two minutes after that, qualifying was stopped for a third time as Frank Porte Ruiz copied Megna in sending his car into the turn three gravel trap.

So after another break of 12 minutes, drivers headed out of the pitlane again with just under six minutes remaining on the session clock.

The next change at the top came with two minutes to go, as Enzo Peugeot set a 1m21.686s to unseat Foster from first place. Max Reis went third fastest with a 1m21.725s, and Enzo Richer set a 1m21.791s to slot into fourth before yellow flags were waved once again at turn three.

But this time there was no further disruption and it meant drivers had enough time to go for improvements on their next laps. Giltaire did just that, setting a 1m21.670s to take pole. But the lap was then deleted and he fell down to seventh place, with Peugeot returning to the top.

Foster did not rejoin the action with the last two restarts, but his early benchmark was enough for him to still be the second fastest driver in the session ahead of Reis, Richer, Andriolo and Paul Alberto.

Peugeot earned two poles from the session, as he had the fastest second-best lap of anyone. His 1m21.755s was just 0.013s faster than Foster’s second-best effort, with Andriolo and Alberto qualifying third and fourth with laptimes just 0.071s and 0.085s slower than Peugeot’s.

Giltaire is an improved fifth on the grid based on second-best laptimes, with the top 23 covered by 0.919s.

Qualifying results