As you’d expect at Dijon-Prenois, where the 3800-metre track can be lapped under 1:20, the gaps were extremely close between the main protagonists of the FFSA Academy F4 Championship during the Qualifying session. The second round of the season, held from 9th-11th May, got off to an intense start in pleasant Burgundy weather.
Hostilities really got underway on the fifth lap, when the Pirelli tyres began to show their full effectiveness. Jules Roussel set a reference time of 1:17.094, just 56 thousandths ahead of Arthur Dorison and just over two tenths ahead of Rayan Caretti. It was at this crucial moment that the race director brought out the red flag due to an incident. The single-seaters then rushed into the pit-lane, waiting patiently for the green flag. Championship leader Alex Munoz had not yet managed to complete a fast lap.
But everything changed at the restart. Louis Iglesias was the first to break the 1:17 barrier, with a time of 1:16.975. Jules Roussel stealthily regained the lead, while Germany’s Sacha Maassen and Rafaël Perard joined the mixed duel between drivers with a season’s experience and F4 newcomers. Munoz in turn came up trumps, having bided his time. With a time of 1:16.667 and then 1:16.560 at an average speed of 178 km/h, the driver from Occitanie secured a magnificent double pole with perfect management of this all-important session.
Maassen finished 63 thousandths ahead of Roussel and Perard. Some drivers opted to return to the pits briefly to cool their tyres and set off for a final run. But this didn’t really offer the gains they were looking for. In addition, a lot of ‘track limits’ penalties were recorded, with cancelled times causing a disadvantage.
Louis Iglesias finished 5th ahead of Guillaume Bouzar, Malo Bolliet and Hugo Herrouin. Arthur Dorison took 9th place ahead of Japan’s Rintaro Sato, who will have the advantage of starting from pole position for Race 2 according to the principle of an inverted grid for the first 10 drivers in the session.
17 drivers finished within a second of each other. 12th behind Andy Consani, Lisa Billard finished within 4 hundredths of the top 10, but set the fastest time in the women’s race ahead of Dutchwoman Annabelle Brian and Angelina Proenca.
The grid for Race 3 will be based on the second fastest laps of each driver, but the order will remain the same for the top four drivers. The weather is expected to be mild, which means that the tyres will suffer on the abrasive Dijon track. This will be another important factor to take into account.
