Saucy Rebounds with Dominating Performance to Win Race Two at Paul Ricard

After losing victory in race one on Saturday through no fault of his own, Swiss racer Grégoire Saucy took a commanding win in race two at the Circuit Paul Ricard to extend his advantage at the top of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine standings.

Saucy had dominated race one from pole position but was disqualified for a technical infringement on Saturday, but he took pole position on Sunday morning before taking a lights-to-flag victory in France.

His race was made a little easier by main rival Hadrien David being forced to start from the pit lane after he encountered troubles getting away on the grid, and after fending off an attack from ART Grand Prix team-mate Gabriele Mini heading into turn one, Saucy was in a class of his own once more.

Unfortunately for Mini, he immediately appeared to lose pace and was passed with ease on the straight by Michael Belov and William Alatalo before entering the pits to retire.  It ended a six-race scoring run for the 2020 Italian Formula 4 champion.

Saucy drew away from Belov, with the JD Motorsport driver also able to edge away from Arden Motorsport’s Alatalo.  However, the Finn was unable to pull a gap to R-ace GP’s Isack Hadjar, although the Frenchman was unable to find a way to pass for the final spot on the podium.

FA Racing’s Andrea Rosso had by far his best race of the season so far, shadowing Alatalo and Hadjar before fending off the challenge of R-ace GP’s Zane Maloney to claim fifth, despite a late safety car making life difficult for the Italian.

Arden’s Nicola Marinangeli was the cause of the safety car, with the Italian spinning out.  It looked as though the race would end behind the safety car for a second consecutive day, only for the marshals to do an excellent job in clearing up the track, which allowed a one-lap shootout to the chequered flag.

Behind Maloney, KIC Motorsport’s Patrik Pasma extended his run of good results by claiming seventh ahead of Prema Powerteam duo David Vidales and Paul Aron, while David claimed a remarkable tenth place despite starting from the pit lane.

The Frenchman, who inherited the race win on Saturday following Saucy’s disqualification, charged through the field and was running twelfth when the safety car was called upon.  On the restart, he quickly deposed of Prema’s Dino Beganovic for eleventh before passing ART Grand Prix’s Thomas Ten Brinke with just a couple of corners remaining to claim tenth.

With podium finisher Belov again ineligible to score points due to being a guest driver, those inside the top ten all scored the points of the driver ahead of him, while Ten Brinke claimed the final point despite finishing eleventh.

However, no one had an answer all weekend for Saucy, and the Swiss racer now has a twenty-three-point advantage in the Drivers’ championship, with Maloney now second ahead of Hadjar and David. There is now a three week gap before FRECA returns, with the fifth round of the season taking place at Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands.

Circuit Paul Ricard Race 2 Result

POS.	NO.	DRIVER	NAT	TEAM	TIME/GAP
1	26	Grégoire Saucy	CHE	ART Grand Prix	33:15.012
2	33	Michael Belov	RUS	JD Motorsport	+0.739
3	8	William Alatalo	FIN	Arden Motorsport	+1.358
4	6	Isack Hadjar	FRA	R-ace GP	+1.663
5	19	Andrea Rosso	ITA	FA Racing	+2.502
6	22	Zane Maloney	BAR	R-ace GP	+2.956
7	5	Patrik Pasma	FIN	KIC Motorsport	+3.406
8	12	David Vidales	ESP	Prema Powerteam	+3.954
9	1	Paul Aron	EST	Prema Powerteam	+4.265
10	10	Hadrien David	FRA	R-ace GP	+5.290
11	23	Thomas Ten Brinke	NED	ART Grand Prix	+5.702
12	17	Dino Beganovic	SWE	Prema Powerteam	+6.513
13	43	Franco Colapinto	ARG	MP Motorsport	+6.675
14	35	Pietro Delli Guanti	ITA	Monolite Racing	+7.019
15	58	Elias Seppänen	FIN	KIC Motorsport	+7.063
16	27	Kas Haverkort	NED	MP Motorsport	+7.472
17	96	Oliver Gøthe	DEN	MP Motorsport	+7.771
18	16	Tommy Smith	AUS	JD Motorsport	+9.332
19	55	Alessandro Famularo	VEN	G4 Racing	+10.234
20	62	Lorenzo Fluxá	ESP	Van Amersfoort Racing	+10.760
21	71	Brad Benavides	USA	DR Formula	+11.166
22	21	Alex Quinn	GBR	Arden Motorsport	+11.409
23	41	Emidio Pesce	ITA	DR Formula	+12.204
24	9	Alexandre Bardinon	FRA	FA Racing	+12.900
25	72	Bélen Garcia	ESP	G4 Racing	+13.222
26	7	Axel Gnos	CHE	G4 Racing	+14.194
27	2	Nico Göhler	GER	KIC Motorsport	+14.842
28	85	Gabriel Bortoleto	BRZ	FA Racing	+14.939
29	91	Eduardo Barrichello	BRZ	JD Motorsport	+16.370
30	15	Léna Bühler	CHE	R-ace GP	+16.805
31	64	Mari Boya	ESP	Van Amersfoort Racing	+19.592
RET	51	Francesco Pizzi	ITA	Van Amersfoort Racing	Retired
RET	14	Nicola Marinangeli	ITA	Arden Motorsport	Retired
RET	13	Jasin Ferati	CHE	Monolite Racing	Retired
RET	46	Gabriele Mini	ITA	ART Grand Prix	Retired