American racer Logan Sargeant jumped into the lead at the start of the opening race of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Championship weekend at the Circuit Paul Ricard on Saturday, and despite early pressure from Max Fewtrell, came through to take the victory.
Sargeant assumed the lead into the first turn on the opening lap and did not put a foot wrong as he denied his R-ace GP team-mate Fewtrell an opportunity to pass, and ultimately edged away in the closing laps to win by 1.887 seconds.
Yifei Ye completed the podium for Josef Kaufmann Racing, with the Chinese racer resisting late race pressure from Lorenzo Colombo of JD Motorsport, with the Italian have earlier passed Christian Lundgaard to claim fourth.
Lundgaard had a lonely second half of the race but the MP Motorsport driver retained fifth until the chequered flag, but sixth placed Oscar Piastri of Arden Motorsport had a much busier afternoon, with the Australian keeping Tech 1 Racing duo Neil Verhagen and Aleksandr Smolyar at bay for much of the race.
Charles Milesi took ninth for R-ace GP, while the final point went to Arden Motorsport’s Alexander Vartanyan.
A dreadful start from Victor Martins ruined the Frenchman’s afternoon as the R-ace GP driver dropped from third on the grid all the way down to fifteenth, and although he was able to gain a few places back, he found the defences of Thomas Maxwell too much to break down, and he was forced to settle for twelfth.
There were three high profile retirements on the opening lap, when contact in the opening few turns saw MP Motorsport duo Alex Peroni and Max Defourny, and Josef Kaufmann Racing’s Richard Verschoor, all ended their races in the pits with damage.
Fortec Motorsports’ Arthur Rougier also retired from the race on five lap, while a mistake at the exit of turn two saw Sami Taoufik forced to pit for a new front wing, leaving him a lapped twenty-third and last.
Circuit Paul Ricard Race 1 Result
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