Going into the final French F4 round of the season at Paul Ricard, it was Gabriel Aubry who topped the time sheets. The French driver, who lies third in the standings, will be hoping for a good weekend as he aims for second place overall.
Having struggled in the last two weekends, Axel Matus made the best start to the session, topping the standings early on. While he was unable to keep up over the course of the session, he would still remain in the top five.
All eyes this weekend will be on Valentin Moineault who holds a 59 point margin over Sacha Fenestraz. The gap means that the leader only has to finish on the podium in the first of the three races to secure his crown.
Despite the lack of pressure, Moineault wasn’t taking it easy and was the fastest driver for much of the session, with Aubry trailing half a second back at one point.
Aubry would find the speed towards the end though as he recorded a time of 1:33.755, beating Moineault by 0.047 seconds, while the on form Simo Laaksonen was third overall. A late improvement by British driver Louis Gachot saw him move into the top four ahead of Matus, who will hope to pick up his first podium since his win at Pau.
Ye Yifei, who won his first race last time out, will hope to continue his form as he held his position for a large part of the session, ranking sixth overall. Meanwhile the other front-runners of Giuliano Alesi and Fenestraz were seventh and eighth. The poor result for Fenestraz could jeopardise his championship chances come qualifying.
