French Formula 4 championship leader Ye Yifei stretched his advantage in the standings slightly more as he won the third race of the weekend at Pau. It becomes his first French F4 win this round, setting him up for an easier final race where he’ll once again start on pole.
Ye made a clean start as the field managed to not cause a red flag, improving on the result of yesterday’s getaway. Drama wasn’t far round the corner though, as Michael Benyahia missed his braking point on the sodden Pau streets, landing in the barrier and bringing out the safety car.
With the track soon cleared, Ye used the opportunity to break away from the fast starting Gilles Magnus. Following Benyahia onto the side lines had been race one winner Javier Cobian, after a transmission failure forced him out of the competition.
Ye’s domination eventually allowed him to win by almost ten seconds as second place Magnus held off Pierre-Alexandre Jean for their two-three of the weekend. Both drivers have been the main beneficiaries of poor weekends by the usual frontrunners, allowing them to leap up in the title fight.
Arthur Rougier closely followed the podium finishers home as Tristan Charpentier rounded out the top five. After two podiums at Paul Ricard, Charpentier will be disappointed with this weekends performance, but will be hoping to end on a high as he starts fifth for the final round.
As for the other French championship contender; Hugo Chevalier, he summed up his weekend by spinning on the warm up lap, forcing him to start at the back of the grid. He recovered, but only enough to finish tenth. He’ll struggle to collect a strong result in the final event.
