Yann Ehrlacher was pleased with his weekend at Circuit Pau-Arnos in France, even though the Cyan Racing driver saw his championship advantage cut by six points.
Ehrlacher went into the weekend with a 20 point advantage, but after two bruising races, he left with a slimmed down advantage.
In qualifying the Frenchman made it all the way to Q3, but in the shootout he was the slowest driver, putting his Lynk & Co in fifth for race two.
The reverse-grid race one put the reigning champion in sixth on the grid, and from there he had a challenging race that involved a slow start and contact with Honda’s Tiago Monteiro at the start, that ultimately saw him drop two places to end in eighth.
The incident with Monteiro was investigated after the race but Ehrlacher was not penalised because “the action happened at the beginning of the first lap… and no driver was predominantly to blame for this action”.
In race two, Ehrlacher was again in the thick of the battles, running in seventh early on before gaining ground when Esteban Guerrieri made contact with Frédéric Vervisch, handing the Lynk & Co driver two places.
Later contact with Guerrieri on the last lap almost cost Ehrlacher, but he took fifth on the line after out-dragging the ailing Norbert Michelisz out of the final corner.
“It was really tough, finishing P5,” said Ehrlacher. “It was really challenging with a lot of contact, and I still don’t know how we saved all of them.
“I’m really pleased to score the points – we are still leading, but the gap is getting a bit closer.
“It will make the work a little bit more intense, but I will look forward to the next one now.”