Jack Aitken took his first win of the year in round one of the Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS after taking his first pole position during qualifying earlier in the day. The Brit beat yesterday’s pole man and ultimate winner Anthoine Hubert of Tech 1 Racing and Koiranen teammate Jake Hughes to the flag in his first race in the ALPS category.
Yesterday’s race saw Aitken in 2nd, sandwiched between 2 Frenchmen: Hubert at the top with Simon Gachet in 3rd. Today saw a reversal of roles somewhat, with Aitken and Hughes on the top and bottom steps of the podium with Hubert in the middle. Of the four drivers who’ve been on the podium thus far, only Aitken and Hubert have successfully finished both races – Hughes failed to finish race 1, and Gachet didn’t see the end of today’s race.
Their misfortune opens the door for the consistently quick drivers who were the next 3 drivers in both races: the experience Stefan Reiner and Martin Kodric, and McLaren junior Ben Barnicoat. It’ll be these three who are in the optimum position to challenge Aitken and Hubert at the next race at Pau in mid-May, and one can hope that they can all keep the fight for the title as fierce as it has been for this first weekend.
