An excellently worked race from Ye Yifei sees him claim his first French F4 win having made the most of a late mistake from long time race leader, Nerses Isaakyan. The top two will move up in the championship, with Ye having not finished a race higher than fifth before.
It had been British driver Louis Gachot who was on reverse pole, but he was not able to make the most of it, falling to third by lap two. He’d initially kept the lad into turn one, but was no match for the quick starting Isaakyan who quickly raced off down the road.
A lap later and Ye got past. With Gachot holding the cars up behind, he looked about chasing the Russian in the lead. For many laps Ye looked unable to make any inroads, but had done well to keep within 2 seconds.
With 5 laps to go, Isaakyan made a small, but unforced error as Ye took the opportunity to go sailing into the lead. For the final four laps the Chinese driver defended, but was able to hold off the determined Isaakyan around Navarra.
Gachot would remain in third for most of the race, but was unable to defend from championship challenger Sacha Fenestraz who took the final podium place after a move into the first corner.
In fifth was Gabriel Aubry. He’d been off the pace at the start of the race and was held up by Reuben Kressner before eventually making his move.
As for Kressner he recovered to hang on to sixth. The Swede had been off the pace all race and would eventually lose time to the leaders. However; another example of an excellent defensive display saw him hang on for 8 points.
The pressure was relieved near the end, when Valentin Moineault made a move on the Swede only to be forced wide. The two car behind both went for the gap and three into one hairpin saw Moineault run off and lose a number of places.
In the end it was Julien Darras who made his way through the field to finish in seventh in front of race one winner Giuliano Alesi who had gone fairly unnoticed after his poor start.
Behind them Julien Andlauer and Kami Laliberte rounded out the top ten with Moineault finishing outside of the points, but will start on pole for race three.
