This weekend sees the kick-off of the first event counting towards the 2014 French F4 Championship and the drivers are determined not to mess up the start of their 2014 season on their favourite playing field, the Le Mans Bugatti circuit. It looks like there will be a no-holds-barred battle for this year’s title as there are so many favourites. On Sunday evening after the first three races we will have an idea of the early hierarchy.
The Auto Sport Academy, the FFSA’s training centre, is a school that’s unique in the world in which for more than18 years now young drivers and mechanics have been trained in the championship organised by the ASA itself. The French F4 Championship is the French Motor Sports Federation’s blue riband competition and the only single-seater formula in the prestigious GT Tour.
It is a great launch pad for youngsters who want to become professional racing drivers. Guys like Jean-Eric Vergne, winner of the title in 2007, Stoffel Vandoorne victorious in 2010 who is now the third driver at McLaren, Charles Pic, Benoît Tréluyer, Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval, winner of the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours and the World Endurance Championship title, all cut their teeth in this top-class championship.
Obviously, the excitement is building up to a climax as the first round on home turf draws near! After the workshops the 30 odd trainee mechanics are champing at the bit to get down to the nitty-gritty. For the drivers there’s nothing like a championship to sort them out; they can’t wait to get out there and do battle on the 4,185-m Bugatti circuit at the wheel of their F4 FFSA Signatech cars which have three evolutions this season: a rear crash box, an extractible seat and wheel tethers. They have all been prepared in identical fashion by the Auto Sport Academy and drawn by lot at the start of the season, which guarantees a level playing field for the drivers. And finally to prepare for their move up the ladder to the next level, setup modifications are allowed under the watchful eye of engineers from teams at the top of the motor sport pyramid.
In addition to racing, the Auto Sport Academy and its instructors pay meticulous attention to the quality of the training given to the drivers, so they have foreseen regrouping stages including different workshops and courses linked to the pursuit of a professional career in motor sport. Studies are not forgotten either as those who wish to do so can join the Pôle Espoirs a sports/study centre where they can combine motor sport and education.
There are 23 budding champions in the 2014 class whose average age is only 16! These include three former members of the 2013 FFSA French Kart Team Dorian Boccolacci, Valentin Moineault, Erwan Julé, and Bryan Elpitiya who was also part of the 10-15 programme (a programme accompanying young kart drivers to the top level). They are determined to measure themselves against their colleagues Valentin Hasse-Clot, Tom Soubiron, Amaury Richard and Hugo Sugnot-Darniche. Anouck Abadie, the only woman driver in the 2014 French F4 Championship, knows she‘ll have to fight to find her feet among these young chargers determined to win for France.
Among the foreign drivers, the majority of the field, Brit Félix Hirsiger who raced in 2013, is back to build on the progress he made last year. To achieve this he will have to fight off the French contingent and a couple of Finns, Niclas Nylund and Simo Laaksonen, two Russians Vladimir Atoev and Denis Bulatov, Australian Joseph Mawson, Lasse Sorensen from Denmark, Swede Reuben Kressner, Joao Carvalho from Portugal, Mexican Axel Matus, Juan Manuel Jimenez Silva from Colombia and three drivers from Switzerland: David Droux, Paul Hokfelt Junior and Gjergj Haxhiu.
The season has all the makings of a thrilling spectacle with a no-holds-barred battle out on the track, and the champion at the end of the 2014 season will certainly be a future great in motor sport.
There are 3 races on the programme with a single qualifying session of between 25 and 30 minutes.
The line-up for the first race will be established according the second-fastest time of each driver in the qualifying session. The classification of race 1 will decide the grid positions for race 2 with the first ten in race 1 starting in reverse order. The other drivers will start in the finishing order. The grid line-up for race 3 will be established according to the fastest time of each driver in qualifying.
Schedule
Friday 25th April: free practice at 09h05 and qualifying at 16h25.
Saturday 26th April: race 1 at 11h55 and race 2 at 17h30.
Sunday 27th April: race 3 at 11h00.
>>> Follow the races live on www.gt-tour.fr
Info Auto Sport Academy / © Photo KSP