The first race weekend of MAXX Formula this season ended up in two thrilling and exciting races with many tight but always fair infights for positions. Race 1 was characterized by an incredible and exciting duel between pole setter Christopher Brenier and the runner-up Wolfgang Jaksch. Jaksch, starting from P2 claimed a slightly better start and lead the field through the first corner. However, in turn 5, he overshot the turn due to cold brakes and had to let pass Brenier, who from this moment took back the lead. The first period he was able to distance Jaksch, but the margin never exceeded 2 seconds. The F1 Super Aguri pilot gradually increased the pressure on the Frenchman and from lap 4 onwards, the gap between the two of them stayed always between one second. All fans were literally captured by this gripping scenario and expected an attack from the German pilot at any moment. Unfortunately, in the penultimate lap, Jaksch lost engine power due to a temporary electronic failure and not only had to let go Brenier, but he also lost a podium position, which was finally well-earned by the French Williams FW 33 driver, Didier Sirgue followed by Nicolas Matile, who already showed great pace over the entire race weekend. Both drivers followed the fighting leaders throughout the entire race within a distance in sight. Wolfgang Jaksch at least rescued P4. P5 was grapped by David Moretti, followed by Martin Kindler, who confirmed his good impressions from the free practices and the qualifying. P7 went to Gilles Brenier with his SuperLeague Formula V12, followed by Hans Laub, debuting with his newly aquainted Dallara GP2 after a long racing break. The Swiss pilot Peter Göllner, finally found his race trim and finished P9. The Bavarian IndyCar driver Anton Werner brought back his beautiful and original US single seater on 10th place. The one and only MAXX Formula female racer, Veronika Jaksch, also finished her first race with the F1 Toro Rosso STR8 on P11. She tried to battle with Anton Werner but at the end she decided to focus on bringing back the car into the box and collecting valuable data to further develop the car. Behind Veronika Jaksch, it was Stefan Glaser, who earned a podium within the MAXX Formula Master Class. The senior driver Karl-Heinz Becker, who came to Paul Ricard without being able to test his car not even once, again benefited from his 50+ year experience and finished the race without any incidents. A short safety car phase of one lap was caused by a spin of Christian Eicke, SUI, who unfortunately was not able to regain the track while losing his GP2 after turn 5.

Race two on Sunday started with serious bad news for the F Xtreme Racing Team. The F1 Super Aguri of Wolfgang Jaksch faced a gearbox sensor failure during the engine fire up procedure prior to the race and time did not allow to change the faulty part as the entire gearbox would have had to be dismounted. No chance for him to challenge Christopher Brenier In race 2. Beyond that, the team discovered a hydraulic issue on the second car and mainly for safety reasons, the responsible engineer decided not to release the Toro Rosso STR8 from Veronika Jaksch. However, these unfortunate incidents for F Xtreme Racing Team resulted in another expected battle between Christopher Brenier and Didier Sirgue. And so it happened: The entire race, the two pilots skipped nothing to excite the crowd on the grandstand. Finally, it was again the young French SuperLeague Formula driver, who triumphed again in race 2 and went home with a clean double win! For the first 3 laps of the race, the chasing field has been lead by Martin Kindler until Nicolas Matile took over P3 and did not give away his position until the chequered flag. Kindler lost two more positions to David Moretti (P4) and Gilles Brenier (P5). Behind the Swiss GP2 driver, it was again Hans Laub, who climbed up one spot comparing to the Saturday race. Another battle was on the entire race between the Speed Center drivers Christian Eicke and Peter Göllner. Ultimately Göllner defeated his position and finished P8, followed by Eicke. P10 went to Stefan Glaser, who won the silver trophy in the Master Class, followed by Anton Werner and Karl-Heinz Becker.

All detailed results can be downloaded from here

Overall, the thousands of fans saw spectacular racing, lots of infights and thankfully a MAXX Formula weekend without any accidents. The heat is on again beginning of August, when the MAXX Formula series will participate in the event of the well-known” Jack`s Racing Days” in Assen/NED. Despite the still ongoing restrictions due to COVID, the biggest motorsport festival in Europe will definitely grant access to fans, recently 11000 tickets have been released so far and hopefully more will be allowed until the beginning of the spectacular event weekend!

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