The penultimate race of the French FFSA GT Championship at Paul Ricard was a night-time affair and settled both the Silver Cup and Am Cup titles, but left the overall Pro-Am title to go to the wire on Sunday.
Starting from pole position, Fabien Michal and Grégory Guilvert (Audi R8 LMS GT4 # 42 Saintéloc Junior Team) kept their title hopes alive with Nicolas Gomar and Mike Parisy (Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 # 89 AGS Events) also reviving their title hopes by beating not only the two Audi R8 LMS GT4 of the Saintéloc team of Cyril Saleilles, Adrien Tambay and Olivier Estèves-Anthony Beltoise, but also the Mercedes-AMG GT4 AKKA ASP of Thomas Drouet, fifth with his teammate Fabien Barthez. Drouet though retains the lead of the Championship with Sunday’s race to come with both his pre-Saturday main title rivals having worse days.
After losing several positions at the end of the race, Rudy Servol and Nicolas Prost (Alpine A110 GT4 # 36 CMR) had to settle for 8th position in Pro-Am. It was even worse for Rodolphe Wallgren and Gaël Castelli (Alpine A110 GT4 # 222 Mirage Racing), forced to retire following a technical problem.
Five crews then are separated by 19 points with 25 up for grabs. Thomas Drouet leads by 11 points from Michal-Guilvert), Servol-Prost are 12 points back), Wallgren-Castelli (14back) and Gomar-Parisy (19points back)
Silver Cup and Am Cup titles awarded
By finishing in the wake of the winners Sacha Bottemanne and Lonni Martins (Audi R8 LMS GT4 # 6 Team Fullmotorsport) in the Silver Cup, Romain Leroux and Valentin Hasse-Clot (Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 #007 AGS Events) took their first French FFSA GT Champions title, the points enough to put the class championship beyond doubt.
The Am Cup was settled too, Christophe Hamon and Pascal Huteau taking the win in their Team Fullmotorsport #5 Audi R8 LMS GT4 taking a seventh victory in eleven races.
