Vladislav Lomko is the winner of the 79th Grand Prix de Pau and adds his name to the glorious list of greats in the roll of honour of the mythical race in the streets of the French town. In a warm afternoon, he was cheered by the crowd almost as a local hero, as the Russian driver lives in France, races under French license and speaks perfectly the language.
The Crypto Tower driver beat his teammate Christian Mansell and Oliver Goethe (Motopark), taking also the win in the Rookies’ Trophy. Goethe is still leading the standings by 19 points on Mansell and 31 on Lomko.
« I still can’t realize I have won the Pau GP », said an overwhelmed Lomko. « It will take a few days, but it is great to win here in such a great atmosphere. I was confident that I could do well, but you cannot assume anything on a track like this. I took a good start and then I tried to manage tyres and not do mistakes. »
Lomko was very competitive the entire weekend and narrowly missed (0s049) the pole position in Qualifying to Oliver Goethe (Motopark), the driver that dominated the weekend up to that point.
The start, though, saw again Goethe struggling a bit while Lomko has a perfect kick off. In turn 1, the Dane tried to overtake his rival on the outside, losing grip on the dirt and almost hitting the wall. Goethe found himself fifth, behind Lomko, Mansell, Mason and Ugran. While Lomko pulled away without problems, Goethe started fighting to recover positions, but he could only pass Ugran (VAR) in lap 20, when the Romanian slightly opened the door after Beaumont.
That allowed Goethe to take third, as in the meantime, Josh Mason (CryptoTower) went straight at Foch and crashed into the barriers. An earlier retirement had been the one of Francesco Simonazzi (BVM) who lost his car at turn 1 in lap 4.
Ugran crossed the line in fourth, ahead of an excellent Nico Pino (Drivex), a resilient Sebastian Øgaard (the Dane of VAR raced with a twisted thumb), Nicola Marinangeli (VAR) and Frederick Lubin (Motopark), who started with a 3-position penalty on the grid. Alex Garcia (Motopark) and Vladimir Netusil (Effective) took the last points.
The Euroformula Open will be in action again in two weeks at the Circuit Paul Ricard.