Backed by the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium, Yani Stevenheydens arrived at Spa Francorchamps with the aim of shining on home soil and taking the lead in the provisional standings of the 2024 French F4 Championship. The event has only just begun, but the 18-year-old Belgian hopeful has already taken the first step during the Qualifying session, with a performance that enables him to start first in Race 1 on Saturday morning and Race 3 on Sunday. In accordance with the regulations, Race 2 will start in the reverse order of Qualifying for the top 10 finishers.
In the morning, Andorran Frank Porte Ruiz set the fastest time in Free Practice on a dry track, ahead of two of the season’s early pace-setters, Japan’s Taito Kato and France’s Jules Caranta. In 5th position, sandwiched between Frenchman Karel Schulz and Luxembourger Chester Kieffer, Belgian Yani Stevenheydens reassured himself of his competitiveness.
But rain arrived in the Walloon region in the afternoon, forcing the FFSA Academy mechanics to fit the Mygale F4s with wet tyres for the 30-minute Qualifying session. An incident involving Germany’s Montego Maassen brought out the red flag. The track remained slippery and tricky in places when the academicians returned to the track for the final twenty minutes.
Stevenheydens set an initial reference time of 2:39.629, but the final moments of the session proved decisive. Kieffer managed to improve his time to 2:39.458, but Stevenheydens went on the attack again and reclaimed his lead. Caranta, who had been 4th behind Kato for a long time, moved up the order at the very end of the session to 2nd ahead of Kieffer.
Another duel pitted several drivers against each other for 5th place, around a second off the times of the leading quartet. Frenchman Augustin Bernier finished ahead of Porte Ruiz to complete the top five. Great Britain’s Gabriel Doyle-Parfait was 4th during the session, before falling back to 9th behind Ireland’s Alex O’Grady and Thailand’s Rayan Caretti. Tenth-placed Jules Roussel will have the honour of starting from pole position for Race 2.
The second fastest laps set by each driver, counted to establish the grid for Race 3, did not change the top five. However, Jules Roussel climbed to 6th place and Dylan Estre to 8th.
> Spa Francorchamps 2024 F4 programme (round 3 of 7)
Saturday 22nd June: Race 1 (11:00 – 11:30) and Race 2 (16:00 – 16:30)
Sunday 23th June: Race 3 (09:15 – 09:45)
Info FFSA Academy / Photo © KSP – Guillaume Veuve