After leading the race from pole, Aleks Karkosik threw away an easy victory as he spun his Signatech F4 Renault in the most costly driver error of the season so far. This left Ye Yifei out in front to claim yet another French F4 Championship win around Ledenon.
The second race of the weekend saw the top ten reversed, ensuring the midfield drivers are given a chance to prove themselves and the usual front-runners are challenged to overtake the opposition.
Having finished race one in tenth, Polish rookie Karkosik started on pole and managed to retain his lead off the line. Jose Sierra, who had started alongside him on the front row dropped back quickly. Meanwhile a crash between Pierre-Alexandre Jean and Arthur Rougier, with Javier Cobian also involved, sent them all to the back of the field.
In the confusion, the poor starting Sierra got past Gilles Magnus, promoting him three positions to seventh. Having been released, race one winner Ye set the fastest lap, determined to close the gap to those in front.
After five laps, Karkosik finally broke away slightly, relieving the stress on himself as the others falling back. He continued to build the gap as the race wore on, comfortably pulling out a three-second advantage.
A number of drivers, so focused on getting a strong result, became unaware of their circumstances, as an incident with Rougier saw him drop down to eighth, throwing away his chance at a podium.
With only a few minutes to run, second place Tristan Charpentier was clearly struggling. Although a lot of his early race rivals had taken themselves out of the equation, Ye, who had already got past Michael Benyahia for third, started harrying the Frenchman, eventually forcing him into a mistake.
Leading by three seconds, Karkosik seemed on course for his first ever victory, but disaster befell the Pole as he spun the car on the penultimate lap forcing him out of the race. It was a careless driver error and one that he’ll surely regret for the remainder of the weekend.
This left the faultless Ye to take the chequered flag despite having started tenth. He was joined on the podium by Benyahia and Charpentier. Fourth place eventually went the way of Magnus, who disposed of fifth place Sierra with a lap to go. The top six was eventually rounded out by Hugo Chevalier who will be glad to have recovered some points in a race of endurance.
