FRENCH F4 CHAMPIONSHIP - PAUL RICARD HTTT - RACE 1

14/11 - A champion named Matthieu Vaxivière

Matthieu Vaxivière © DPPI

Suspense ends with Matthieu Vaxivière finishing third behind Alexandre Mantovani and Pierre Gasly, the latter fulfilling his second consecutive victory. Thus Matthieu Vaxivière becomes the 19th driver to inscribe his name on Auto Sport Academy tablets. With his title of Champion of France, he succeeds to Jean-Eric Vergne, titled in 2007 and present during this week-end to support the young drivers! Finally, after two years of victory for Belgium drivers, he confirms that French are back in competitions organised by the federal training centre.

It is under a terrific sunshine that the 21 single-seaters set on the starting grid of the first race of the finale taking place in the “Var”. As for tomorrow, “junior” Pierre Gasly will be placed in pole position next to the leader of the Championship Matthieu Vaxivière. Andréa Pizzitola and Alexandre Mantovani follow while Sébastien Ogier and Aurélien Panis share the third line. Paul Petit dashes from the pits as his transmission broke during the warm up lap.

At the extinction of lights, the pole man leaves the way to Matthieu Vaxivière but the latter does not lead the race for long. Because of engine short-circuits, he falls back to 10th position. Therefore, Pierre Gasly recovers his position but the ex-driver of the go-kart FFSA French team is forced to give in quickly to Alexandre Mantovani who is obviously at ease on the Castellet track. He proceeds to force the pace and extend the gap with the trio Gasly, Panis, Pizzitola. Behind, the Spaniard Victor Colomé leapfrogs his way past Pierre Sancinena and now proceeds to pass Andréa Pizzitola as well. He will need 3 laps to succeed. In the meantime, the public attends to an uphill battle between the Finnish Patrick Kujala and Tristan Papavoine before Matthieu Vaxivière settles them down in taking the 8th position behind Sébastien Ogier. Sportingly, the rallyman does not insist and let him rejoin the “enemy-duet” Pizzitola and Sancinena. Then the match can start between the three of them. Ahead of the trio, another battle is being carried out between Aurélien Panis and Victor Colomé.

The leader, Alexandre Mantovani is losing the lead as swift Pierre Gasly attempts an attack with success in mid course. Victor Colomé does likewise and passes Aurélien Panis. At the following lap, Matthieu Vaxivière takes over Pierre Sancinena and proceeds likewise with Andréa Pizzitola. The latter and Aurélien Panis come into contact. Unfortunately the second mentioned shuffled down in the classification. In order to save his tyres for tomorrow, he decides then to get back to the pits just as Paul Petit. Matthieu Vaxivière is now on Victor Colome’s tail who is served with a drive through penalty for anti-sport behaviour. However, he is not the only one to be penalized... Andréa Pizzitola is served with the same penalty further to a contact with Aurélien Panis and totally writhes off his chance to get the title.

More than 2 seconds ahead of Alexandre Mantovani, Pierre Gasly heads for his third victory of the season. On the ultimate lap, Matthieu Vaxivière manages to have the advantage again over Pierre Sancinena who had got ahead on the previous lap to step on the podium enjoying immensely to get the title of French F4 Champion! Pierre Sancinena and Sébastien Ogier complete the top five of the race. However, as the rally man cannot score, Patrick Kujala benefits from the points of the 5th position ahead of Tristan Papavoine, Jordan Perroy, the Andorran Alex Loan Ventura, the Belgian Kévin Balthazar and Cyril Raymond who finally pockets points. As for Maël Le Gall, he indeed finished at the last position but he managed to thwart the tricks of the track methodically.

Pierre Gasly: “Since the last event of Spa, I have kept having good results and gathered heavy points which have enabled me to make up places seriously in the Championship. It is my second consecutive victory and I hope to perform the same tomorrow. At the beginning of the race, I was not very at ease, then I managed to place my marker and launched an attack on Alexandre who I leapfrogged mid-race.”

Alexandre Mantovani: “I have been waiting for this podium since the 2nd race of Nogaro! I am satisfied even though I had set my sights on finishing first but I will make up for it tomorrow as a victory will enable me to climb again up in the classification of 2, even 3 places.”

Matthieu Vaxivière: “I made a good start and run the first lap in the lead but I had a mechanical failure and then was placed 10th! Lap after lap, I made up places taking care not to commit mistakes. I am very happy with this title that I obtained thanks to my regularity. In the future ? I will savour my title and there is still a race tomorrow and we will see later how things go.”