Wheldon Takes Third Victory of the Season at Le Castellet
- therookiereporters
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
American driver Sebastian Wheldon took a third victory for 2026 during the second race at Paul Ricard.
Sebastian Wheldon was set to start on pole after original pole-sitter Emanuele Olivieri received a three-place grid penalty due to mechanics working on his car before it was correctly parked in the pit lane. Starting alongside Wheldon is his teammate Abkhazava.
It was lights out and away we went, it was Abkhazava who overtook his teammate for the race lead. Further down the order, multiple drivers were going three wide. Munoz went slightly wide in the first sector going into Sector 2. Contact saw the Trident of Andrija Kostić coming to a stop on track which led to the deployment of the safety car, neutralising the grid. His teammate Daryanani also retired after stalling in the pit lane.
Wheldon was leading the way on the restart while building a gap to his teammate - Abkhazava who was battling with Reno Francot for second place. Wheel to wheel into multiple corners went Abkhazava and Francot, switching positions multiple times but Abkhazava was able to keep position as Olivieri took third place from Francot. Going wide went the Prema Racing car of Salim Hanna which let Gabriel Gomez through into sixth.
Reno Francot went off wide and spun off track after going wheel to wheel with Gomez and fell down the order into 24th, an unlucky race for CL Motorsport driver. Olivieri managed to make the move on Abkhazava as the MP Motorsport car went slightly up in the air. Race control had noted an unsafe rejoin to the track by Reza Seewooruthun, no further action was taken.
On the tenth lap, the gap between Wheldon and Olivieri went up to 3.8s. Kabir Anurag, managed to make the move on Salim Hanna, taking the final points position.
The final lap saw championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta close in on Alexander Abkhazava. 5.3 seconds ahead of Olivieri, Sebastian Wheldon takes his third race victory of the season. Emanuele Olivieri finished in second, with back to back P2 finishes and Alexander Abkhazava on the podium for the second time this weekend.
Article written by Ria Wiktor ©️ Ria Wiktor 2026
