Team Magic driver Thomas Vigneron made the pole position and finished on second position at the third round of French National Championship at Ampuis.

The track of Ampuis is nice and interesting, with a very good overall grip. Facilities are also on top, with podium and club-house in hard construction, and good pits.

Practices and qualifications:

In modified category, Thomas was already extremely fast on Friday’s training, and continued to dominate the race during both the Saturday’s free and controlled practices. He finally made some mistakes during the qualification runs on Saturday: a wrong start on Q1 (to close of the starting line, his chrono started 5 seconds before his “real start”), and a tire exploded in Q2 (badly factory glued, on one point), and a wrong tire strategy on Q3 (he started with old tires, while many others choose new ones). On Sunday, weather changed completely for rain… sometimes heavy, sometimes light. On wet conditions, Thomas made two TQ runs to obtain the pole position on the grid for the finales.

In 10.5 category, Sébastien Nardeux was very fast on saturday on dry conditions, but didn’t raced under rain, to preserve his material, especially the electronics, as many other competitors in 10.5 and 13.5 categories. Sunday morning, Aurélien Rivard, made very impressive laps with a TQ run and and 3rd place in Q5. With that, he obtained a fantastic second place on the grid.

In 13.5 category, the regional drivers was very fast. Hai-Long Tran and Romain Sansano reached the A-final with their TM E4S III Plus, but was a bit disappointed by their own performances.

Finales:

First final runs started very bad for Thomas, with more water on track, is car suffered of aquaplaning due to a too low ride height, and he finished on the grass on lap one. Re-starting on last position, he passed many competitors to finish on third place behind Alexandre Laurent and Maxime Favrelle. For second run, Thomas choose to increase his ride height, but there was less water on track, and the roll center with higher ride height wasn’t good enough to keep his first place, and let Alexandre Laurent won the overall race with two first places.

Weather one more time completely changed after the finale 2, and the track was just dry for the final 3. Thomas switched for his dry car, and won the third run just in front of his team mate Cyril N’Diaye and Maxime Favrelle.


Cyril N'Diaye's car

In 10.5 category, things was difficult for Aurélien Rivard, who unfortunatly finished on the overall 6th place, followed by Laurent Desperries on 7th, while Sebastien Nardeux finished 10 due to his retirement.

13.5 category was quite difficult. Romain Sansano and Hai-Long Tran finished respectively 5th and 7th.

Overall Result – MODIFIED:
1. Alexandre Laurent
2. Thomas Vigneron – Team Magic E4RS III Plus / HRC Racing
3. Maxime Favrelle
4. Cyril N’Diaye – Team Magic E4RS III Plus / HRC Racing
5. Manuel Wagner
6. Jean-Michel Varinard
7. Jérémy Limoges
8. Eric Loge
9. Christophe Varniere
10. Frédéric Beys
11. Sébastien Fender
12. Gonzalo Garcia

Overall Result – 10.5:
1. Pierre Delorme
2. Jean Delorme
3. Alexandre Duchet
4. Julien Jost
5. Steve Favrelle
6. Aurélien Rivard – Team Magic E4RS III Plus / HRC Racing
7. Laurent Desperries – Team Magic E4RS III Plus
8. Michael Jasmin
9. Richard Volta
10. Sébastien Nardeux – Team Magic E4RS III Plus
11. Renaud Brusselle
12. Antoine Verdan
13. Jean-Pierre Rabbe
14. Hervé Becet
15. Yoann Bukowski – Team Magic E4RS III Plus / HRC Racing
16. Éric Sautereau
17. Jean-François Velvindron
18. Alexandre Kunkler
19. Laurent Monbailly
20. Pierre Monti
21. Fabien Valantin – Team Magic E4RS III Plus / HRC Racing
22. Olivier Pierrat

Overall Result – 13.5:
1. Sébastien Gibert
2. Cédric Gerbert
3. Alexandre Germingnon
4. Benoit Chambion
5. Romain Sansano – Team Magic E4RS III Plus
6. Samuel Verdan
7. Hai Long Tran – Team Magic E4RS III Plus
8. Nicolas Cardoso
9. Guillaume Desbois
10. William Pomarel
11. Briac Berthoud
12. Eugène Orer
13. Denis Vicente

Notice: many drivers have been disqualified and don’t appears on the result, for non-marshalling on Sunday (rain).

Source:

Favelle RC