Sebastian Wheldon claimed his first victory since Zandvoort in the second and final race of the FIA Formula Regional European Championship weekend at Paul Ricard. The MP Motorsport driver, who inherited pole position after a post-qualifying penalty was handed to R-ace GP's Emanuele Olivieri, went on to claim victory and score valuable championship points. R-ace GP's Rashid Al Dhaheri, who arrived in France leading the championship, finished sixth.
Thanks to his third-place finish, combined with victory in Saturday's opening race, PREMA Racing's Kean Nakamura-Berta leads the championship with a 13-point advantage over joint second-placed Rashid Al Dhaheri and Sebastian Wheldon. Olivieri once again underlined his consistency by securing his second runner-up finish of the weekend and now sits just seven points behind the pair in the standings.
Having started from the front row, MP Motorsport's Alexander Abkhazava finished third before a five-second time penalty demoted him to fifth.
Race Report
At the start, Abkhazava got the better of polesitter Wheldon to take the lead, while CL Motorsport's Reno Francot, starting from the second row, held onto third ahead of Olivieri and Nakamura-Berta.
During the opening lap, Wheldon reclaimed first place, while Trident Motorsport's Andrija Kostić was forced into retirement following contact with team-mate Kai Daryanani, which left his car with terminal damage to the left-rear suspension and brought out the Safety Car.
Following two laps of neutralisation, racing resumed with Wheldon leading Abkhazava, who immediately came under pressure from Francot. Behind them, Olivieri defended fourth from Nakamura-Berta and Salim Hanna.
On lap four, Francot moved ahead of Abkhazava, but the MP Motorsport driver fought back one lap later to reclaim second. Olivieri capitalised on the battle by overtaking Francot for third, before the Dutch driver also lost out to Nakamura-Berta. Meanwhile, Gómez passed Hanna to move into sixth.
On lap six, Francot spun and dropped to the back of the field. With 11 minutes remaining, Olivieri overtook Abkhazava to move into second and began chasing Wheldon, who had already built an advantage of almost three seconds over the rest of the field. Wheldon crossed the line to seal victory, extending his margin over Olivieri, who finished 6.142 seconds adrift.
Sebastian Wheldon (MP Motorsport, Race 1 winner): "It's great to be back on the top step of the podium. It's been a while since my last win at Zandvoort, and we've had a couple of difficult rounds, so this result is a real boost for everyone. The confidence and the pace are there, and now we'll focus on making the most of the final two rounds and scoring as many points as possible. During the race I could see the battles behind me, so I managed my Race Mode carefully and was able to use it on the final lap to set the fastest lap. Now the goal is simply to keep doing our best and maximise every opportunity until the end of the championship."
Emanuele Olivieri (R-ace GP, 2nd and Rookie winner): "Starting from fourth after the qualifying penalty, my only focus was on myself and on the race. I think we had a really strong pace and I was able to maximise everything we had. Of course, I wanted to win because I believe we had the speed to do it and we deserved it, but I'm still very happy with the weekend. We've always had the pace, even if things haven't always gone our way. Over the last few months I've gained a lot of confidence and worked closely with the team on the areas where I could improve, and it's really satisfying to see that work paying off. The championship is still wide open and I'll keep fighting until the very end."
The series will now take a break of more than a month before returning to action in September for the final two rounds of the season at Imola and Hockenheim.