Sacha Fenestraz made a winning return to the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup as he led a Josef Kaufmann Racing one-two ahead of Yifei Ye in race one at the Nurburgring on Saturday.
After qualifying on pole position earlier in the day, Fenestraz lost the lead into turn one on the opening lap to Daniel Ticktum, with Ye maintaining his position in third, with the trio up front pulling a gap quickly to fourth placed Charles Milesi.
On lap four, Fenestraz regained the advantage at the front of the field with a nice pass on Ticktum at turn one, with the French-Argentine driver forcing the Briton to defend on the inside of the turn, only for Fenestraz to grab track advantage on the exit of the corner.
A couple of laps later, with Fenestraz already more than two-seconds up the road, Ticktum lost second to Ye after a battle through the opening sequence of corners, with the second Josef Kaufmann Racing driver getting the advantage by diving to the inside of turn one and holding off the Briton around turns two and three.
Ticktum was able to claim Arden Motorsport’s first podium in the championship in their debut race, but unfortunately for Milesi, who finished on the road in fourth, a technical infringement saw the R-ace GP driver disqualified post-race.
This promoted Luis Leeds to fourth, meaning all three Josef Kaufmann Racing drivers finished inside the top four, with the Australian making all his gains at the start, jumping up from seventh on the grid to run fifth, while Gabriel Aubry was handed fifth place for Tech 1 Racing after passing Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer of JD Motorsport around mid-distance.
R-ace GP duo Michael Benyahia and Gilles Magnus finished seventh and eighth respectively, the latter extending his championship advantage as closest rival Bartlomiej Mirecki was only classified in eleventh position.
Thomas Neubauer was ninth for Tech 1 Racing ahead of James Pull, who completed his first ever Formula Renault 2.0 race with a tenth place finish for Arden Motorsport ahead of Mirecki, Sun Yue Yang, Theo Coicaud and Thomas Maxwell.
Nurburgring Race 1 Result
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