Xavier Coupal captures victory in Race 1 at Mont-Tremblant

Xavier Coupal (Micra No. 1) clinched pole position with a fast time of 2:02.333, 4/10ths of a second quicker than Kevin King (No. 40) and Stefan Gauthier (in car No. 96). Olivier Bédard, the 2015 Cup champion, lined up fourth in his No. 99 Micra, followed by Jean-Michel Isabelle (No. 86), Valérie Limoges (No. 220) and Australian Keishi Ayukai, driving the No. 59 Nissan.

The 23 cars took the rolling start in perfect weather condition, and the leading three cars negotiated the grueling, uphill Corner 1 side-by-side! But a moment later, the Safety Car took to the track because of an accident. Marc-Antoine Cardin pitted under the yellow for a flat tire and quickly rejoined the pack in the last position.

The green restarted the race on Lap 3 with Gauthier in the lead but under intense pressure from Coupal. Corners later, Coupal found the opening and passed Gauthier for the command. On Lap 6, Coupal had a solid two-second advantage over the charging Jean-Michel Isabelle, Kevin King, Olivier Bédard, and Gauthier.

Black flag

A strange incident happened moments after the end of Lap 7, which took two cars out of the race. “For a few laps, the starter had been showing the black flag to Keishi Ayukai for passing under the yellow,” Jacques Deshaies, the promoter of the Cup told Motorsport.com.

“Unfortunately, the starter did not have the board to show the race number of the penalized driver. At the end of Lap 6, Ayukai, Valérie Limoges and Stefan Rzadinski ran side-by-side at the start/finish line and the black flag kind of distracted them and the three cars touched and collided, which is quite disappointing.” The cars of Limoges and Rzadinski were left stranded on the race track while Ayukai was able to continue.

The ensuing full course allowed the safety crew to recover the two damaged cars. The race eventually restarted on Lap 10. Coupal managed to stay in the lead until Lap 12 when he received the chequered flag.

Kevin King finished second ahead of Olivier Bédard. Jean-Michel Isabelle was classified fourth ahead of Metod Topolnik, Normand Boyer, Nicholas Barrette, Marc-Antoine Cardin who recovered well from last place, Stefan Gauthier and Peter Dyck. Ayukai was classified 19th after he was handed a 30-second time penalty for passing under a yellow.

At the end of the day, after having reviewed the video footage from the cars, series' officials decided to penalize Limoges, the driver of the No. 220 Micra, for having tried to queeze in between the two other cars when the accident occured. Limoges was excluded from the results, is on probation for two races and will have to take the start of tomorow's race from the pit lane.

Race 2 of the meeting will be held on Sunday afternoon.