FRECA: A "two-faced weekend" for Doriane Pin at Le Castellet
- RACERS
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Doriane Pin equalled her best finish of the season in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine at her home round in Le Castellet, where she made more steps forward in qualifying and kept closing in on the top ten, but couldn't quite capitalize on her pace as she was taken out in the final race.
Doriane Pin equalled her best finish of the season in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine at her home round in Le Castellet, securing P17 in Race 1 before an accident not of her own making took her out of contention in the early stages of Race 2. It was otherwise a positive round for the French driver, who had one of her best qualifying performances of the season and showed pace all weekend close to the top ten.
Pin returned to the racetrack where she enjoyed her strongest FRECA weekend in 2024, scoring a 13th place finish—her best from her rookie campaign—and once again had top-ten pace on home soil.
Coming off some challenging rounds this year in FRECA, Pin had made a positive step forward at the Hungaroring last time out, where she secured her best result of the season to date with P17 in Race 2, battling for the top 15 throughout the race.
Circuit Paul Ricard, under the heat of the South of France, offered an opportunity to build on that momentum—and early in the weekend, Pin showed promising speed. She set the 13th fastest time in the first practice session with a 2:00.051, just one second off overall pace-setter Enzo Deligny, and made further gains in FP2 by clocking a 1:58.865 that placed her 10th fastest. It was an extremely positive Friday, raising expectations for the weekend.
Saturday morning’s first qualifying session was red-flagged early on after Zachary David went off into the barriers, delaying the session. Pin ran in the second group under overcast skies and quickly dipped under the 2-minute mark to go eighth in her group. She then improved to a 1:58.556, maintaining a strong position as the session went on. Despite improving her second sector later on, she couldn’t quite piece together all three sectors, and with the rest of the field finding more time in the final moments, she dropped to 10th in group. She would line up P21 for Race 1—despite having shown pace to target a climb towards the top ten.
A few spots of rain fell as cars headed to the grid, but the track remained dry. Starting from P21, Pin made a strong and aggressive launch, gaining four places in the opening corners. She held her ground in the intense midfield battles and advanced to P16 by the end of the first lap, fending off pressure from Eykmans and David, with Bhirombhadki also joining the scrap.
Running consistently in the 2:00s, Pin stayed within a second of Dion Gowda ahead. Her pace improved further as she dipped under the 2-minute barrier; by lap 4, she picked up another position and broke into the top 15. Still quicker than Gowda and a few cars ahead, she soon came under threat from the charging Nikita Bedrin, who eventually found a way past on lap 6.
Pin didn’t give up and kept pushing with consistent laps, setting her personal best one lap later to match Bedrin’s pace. Bhirombhadki remained close behind and continued to pressure her.
While Bedrin battled Gowda ahead, Pin closed the gap again—but as she looked to attack, Bhirombhadki launched his own move and overtook her on lap 11. Pin immediately fought back and reclaimed P16 with five minutes to go. The two traded places several times before Bhirombhadki ultimately edged ahead again.
In the final minutes of the race, Pin continued logging extremely consistent laps in the 2:00s, closing the gap once more to Bhirombhadki and enjoying a comfortable margin to the cars behind. On the final lap, she gained a couple of tenths and joined a big pack of battling cars into the last corner. In an almost photo-finish, she crossed the line in P17—just tenths away from the top 15. It was one of her strongest races of the year, and the result could have been even higher given her pace.
On Sunday morning, Pin took to the track in the first qualifying group under already high temperatures.
She improved steadily, going under the 1:59 mark on her second representative lap. On her final attempt, she delivered an impressive 1:58.279—three tenths faster than her Saturday time—which placed her eighth in group and P15 overall, one of her best qualifying results of the season so far.
When the lights went out for the second race, Pin got her elbows out in the opening battles but slipped to P16, then to P17 by the end of the first lap after very close fights with Michael Belov and Rui-Heng Yeh.
A big group of cars fought wheel-to-wheel over the next laps, going two and three wide at times; on lap 3, disaster struck when Doriane was hit under braking at the Mistral Chicane by Giovanni Maschio, sending her car briefly airborne with major damage to the rear suspension. Both cars were out, and the safety car was deployed. Maschio was later handed a four-place grid penalty for causing the incident.
The contact sadly ended what had been a very promising weekend on a sour note. Nevertheless, there were clear positives to take, with strong pace in both qualifying sessions and evident progression throughout the weekend.
"A two-faced weekend here in Paul Ricard. There are some positives to take obviously", Pin commented. "Qualy 2 was pretty decent and a good improvement. We were looking good for Race 2, but I had a contact and couldn't finish. Unfortunate but I'm eyes forward to do a good job on the next weekend."
Next up is Imola on 2-3 August for the sixth race meeting of the season—another opportunity for Pin to continue her climb toward the top ten.