F4 Academy: Enzo Peugeot wins again, but the suspense remains!

The 2023 French F4 Championship will be contested over the weekend of 8th October at Paul Ricard. With another win over Canadian Kevin Foster, Enzo Peugeot extended his lead to 14 points, but Evan Giltaire, 3rd in Race 3, has not had his last word yet.

Warmed by the midday sun but swept by a fairly strong wind, the Lédenon circuit allowed the top three drivers in the French Championship to confirm their status by finishing on the podium in Race 3. Kevin Foster needed to put in a better weekend than Evan Giltaire and Enzo Peugeot if he was to retain any chance of the title. The pole position he narrowly missed out on against the latter did not enable him to achieve his objective, and the 2023 title will therefore go to one of the two Frenchmen. Having arrived in the Occitanie region seven points behind Giltaire, Peugeot obviously put in an excellent performance, adding two victories to his tally and creating an interesting points gap before heading to Le Castellet in October.

Enzo Peugeot dominant despite the safety car

Throughout the meeting, Peugeot kept his cool to convert its double pole position into victories. He fulfilled his objective on Saturday morning in Race 1 and did the same in Race 3 the following day. “It was important to get off to another good start from pole position and that’s what I managed to do,” said the former FFSA Academy French Junior Karting Champion. “There was a tangle behind me after just a few corners, so the safety car came out even before the end of the first lap, before returning a little later. Each time, I managed the restarts perfectly, which was vital to keep Kevin Foster behind me. My objective is still the title and the points I scored at Lédenon are obviously very important in winning it.”

Unable to reverse the trend with the leader, Kevin Foster had to be satisfied with another 2nd place in the Gard, which enabled him to extend the gap with his pursuers in the quest for an overall podium finish in the French Championship. In Race 3, 3rd place was up for grabs from the start. Evan Giltaire made the most of his 5th place to immediately overtake Romain Andriolo and Paul Alberto. He then set a very fast pace, confirmed by the fastest lap of the race. It was enough to make him regret his mishaps in Qualifying even more.

A series of incidents

Race 3 was not a smooth ride for the academicians and several successive incidents led to two neutralisations, the first behind the safety car and the second with a red flag. Louis Schlesser was the victim of an incident at Turn 4 after the start. A few metres further on, Paul Alberto and Belgium’s Yani Stevenheydens collided but were unable to restart.

On lap 5, the duel between Romain Andriolo and Germany’s Max Reis for 5th place ended in a spin for the latter. The incident caused havoc behind him. Italian Leonardo Megna hit him without any injury to the drivers, while the chaos also eliminated Andorran Frank Porte Ruiz, Edgar Pierre and Briton Gabriel Doyle-Parfait.

Japan’s Hiyu Yamakoshi was well on his way to 4th place after overtaking Andriolo when the race resumed for a few minutes once the red flag procedure (necessary to remove the damaged cars) had ended. Enzo Richer had a successful meeting overall, finishing 6th ahead of Adrien Closmenil and Garrett Berry. Romanian Andrei Duna and Spaniard Pol Lopez finished wheel-to-wheel in 9th and 10th positions.

The seventh and final round of the 2023 French F4 Championship takes place on the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet (Var) from 6th-8th October.

> Race 3 standings
1 Enzo Peugeot (France) with 11 laps
2 Kevin Foster (Canada) at 0.980
3 Evan Giltaire (France) at 1.298
4 Hiyu Yamakoshi (Japan) at 3.586
5 Romain Andriolo (France) at 4.650
6 Enzo Richer (France) at 5.119
7 Adrien Closmenil (France) at 7.706
8 Garrett Berry (United States) at 9.348
9 Andrei Duna (Romania) at 10.029
10 Pol Lopez (Spain) at 10.660
11 Finn Wiebelhaus (Germany) at 10.967
12 Joao Paulo Diaz Balesteiro (Colombia) at 11.525
13 Luca Savu (Romania) at 12.575
14 Yaroslav Veselaho (Ukraine) at 12.758
15 Edouard Borgna (France) at 14.091
16 Jason Leung (Canada) at 37.484
17 Karel Schulz (France), retired on the last lap
18 Tom Kalender (Germany), retired on lap 10
19 Max Reis (Germany), retired on lap 8
20 Edgar Pierre (France), retired on lap 8
21 Frank Porte Ruiz (Andorra), retired on lap 8
22 Gabriel Doyle-Parfait (Great Britain), retired on lap 8
23 Leonardo Megna (Italy), retired on lap 8
24 Paul Alberto (France), retired on lap 1
25 Yani Stevenheydens (Belgium), retired on lap 1
26 Louis Schlesser (France), retired on lap 1
Pole position: Peugeot in 1’21″755
FL: Giltaire in 1:21.925 (avg. 138.6 km/h)

> FIA French F4 Championship (provisional after Lédenon)

1 Peugeot (FRA) 276 pts, 2 Giltaire (FRA) 262 pts, 3 Foster (CDN) 188 pts, 4 Andriolo (FRA) 169 pts, 5 Yamakoshi (JPN) 131 pts, 6 Berry (USA) 98 pts, 7 Stevenheydens (BEL) 88 pts, 8 Richer (FRA) 70 pts, 9 Pierre (FRA) 55 pts, 10 Lopez (ESP) 54 pts, 11 Megna (ITA) 31 pts, 12 Closmenil (FRA) 29 pts, 13 Reis (DEU) 24 pts, 14 Schlesser (FRA) 23 pts, 15 Kalender (DEU) 23 pts, 16 Alberto (FRA) 16 pts, 17 Duna (ROU) 12 pts, 18 Schultz (FRA) 11 pts, 19 Savu (ROU) 8 pts, 20 Leung (CDN) 8 pts, 21 Veselaho (UKR) 6 pts, 22 Wiebelhaus (DEU) 6 pts, 23 Porte Ruiz (AND) 2 pts.

FFSA Academy – Press Release / Photo © KSP – Guillaume Veuve