The French Formula 4 Championship gets underway this weekend on the Bugatti layout of the legendary Le Mans circuit. Anglo-Swiss driver Felix Hirsiger was quickest in the first qualifying session of the season but it will be Australian driver Joseph Mawson that will start on pole position for race one.
The second best lap time of the driver counts towards the qualifying results for race one, while Hirsiger’s lap will mean he starts on pole position for the third race of the weekend. The second race’s grid will be set by the finishing order of race one, with the top ten drivers reversed.
Danish driver Lasse Sorensen will start race one in third, ahead of the leading Frenchmen Bryan Elpitiya, Valentin Moineault and Amaury Richard. Russian Vladimir Atoev will start in seventh, ahead of Finn Simo Laaksonen, Frenchman Dorian Boccolacci and another Russian Denis Bulatov.
Hirsiger will start race three on pole ahead of Mawson, with Sorensen again in third. Richard, Elpitiya, Atoev, German driver Reuben Kressner, Moineault, Laaksonen and Boccolacci round out the top ten.
“I had a few mechanical problems in the opening laps, but after the yellow flag I started to push to get into the rhythm,” said Hirsiger after the session. “On my second-last lap Hugo [Sugnot-Darniche] blocked me a little, and on the final one I really went pedal to the metal and it worked!”
