Duval returns to Tréluyer

While his start to the season was almost perfect, Benoit Tréluyer has been accumulating problems for two weeks. This weekend, in Formula Nippon, he lost a lot of points against Loïc Duval, who is right behind him in the standings.

Although he has recovered well, physically, from his spectacular accident 24 Hours of Le MansBenoit Tréluyer has not found his way back to success. This weekend, during the fourth round of the Formula Nippon championship, for the second time at Mount Fuji, the Alençon native did not find success. During qualifying, his team, Lawson-Impul, tried to change the settings of his car to try to reduce the gap with the Nakajima Racing cars. Uncomfortable in this single-seater, Tréluyer was only able to grab an eleventh place on the grid. “ For the warm-up, we returned to the settings we had during the first races, confides “Benoit-Poy”. The car behaved well and I was faster than my teammates, but not enough to catch the Nakajimas. At the time of departure, however, the opening of the celestial floodgates gave me hope of a good rise? »

The Lawson-Impul driver therefore tried to carry out his mission, which began rather well at the start of the race in the rain on Mount Fuji. But Tréluyer then experienced gearbox problems, forcing him to return to the pits. The Frenchman could restart but then had to stop after 20 of the 55 laps, four laps after his teammate. This abandonment was the business of another Frenchman, Loïc duval, driver of one of the famous Nakajima Racing single-seaters. Ensuring, in addition to the pole point, the ten points of victory allowed Duval to count 26 points and follow Benoit Tréluyer (27 pts). “ We will suffer in two weeks at Suzuka where the Nakajimas will be formidable again, concludes Tréluyer. That said, this weekend will not have been in vain because we recorded data that will be very useful to us. I have confidence in our ability to put our finger on something that will allow us to close the gap. »