The drivers took advantage of pleasant weather and a dry track for Friday afternoon’s Qualifying session, which saw two successive very lively episodes, interspersed with a red flag. Already leader of the French F4 Championship after four of the seven 2024 events, Yani Stevenheydens pulled out all the stops to claim a magnificent pole position of 1’40″119 in the final part of the session. The Belgian will therefore start from pole position for Race 1, but also in Race 3 thanks to his excellent second fastest lap.
However, it was Jules Caranta, who had already set the fastest time in Free Practice in the morning, who had set a reference time of 1’40″514 before the red flag. But the Frenchman was only able to come close to that time afterwards, without improving on it. The surprise of the session came from Germany’s Montego Maassen, who finally managed to squeeze into 2nd place with a time of 1’40″424.
Augustin Bernier, winner of the Volant Feed Racing at Magny-Cours at the end of 2023, took a superb 4th place in 1’40″539 ahead of Stevenheydens and Caranta’s championship rival, Japan’s Taito Kato. The next places went to Italian Leonardo Megna, Frenchman Arthur Dorison and Karel Schulz, who was back in the top 10 in Qualifying.
The drivers supported by ADAC, the German federation, were definitely in the limelight, as Mathilda Paatz put in her best performance of the season in 9th place ahead of Frenchman Enzo Caldaras, who will start from pole position in Race 2 following the reverse grid principle for the top 10 drivers in the session.
Despite being well placed in the Championship, Thailand’s Rayan Caretti and Luxembourg’s Chester Kieffer could only manage 17th and 20th successive times. In her first F4 race, Lisa Billard did not disappoint, finishing 22nd out of 26 drivers entered.
