James Baldwin has one hand on the Alpine Esports Series title with a round remaining as he went unbeaten in the second of three events.
While Baldwin had a shaky start to the first round at Barcelona, he came roaring back with a lights-to-flag win in the feature race to take a slim lead in the standings. The GT World Challenge Europe champion carried that winning form through to the second round at Circuit Paul Ricard.
In a wet sprint race qualifying session, Baldwin was half a second clear of his nearest title challenger, Marko Pejic, who could only qualify in seventh, with George Boothby – third in the championship standings – even further back in ninth.
Baldwin made the best start and moved into turn one clear of Andrea Miatto, before breaking the slipstream and simply driving off into the distance.
Luke Whitehead behind was carving through the field too, and would take second place from Miatto on the penultimate lap, while Pejic also made it past the Italian but Miatto just reclaimed third from in the sprint to the line.
Feature race qualifying, this time in the dry, went to form with Baldwin claiming pole position despite Whitehead’s late charge to line up alongside him. Pejic again was only tenth.
The race start was almost a carbon copy of the sprint, with Baldwin placing his car perfectly to keep Whitehead behind into the first turn. From there Baldwin again showed his dominance, dragging away from his countryman by a fairly steady 0.3 seconds per lap to claim another grand slam race win.
With Boothby able to snatch fourth from Miatto on the final lap, and Pejic coming home eighth, Baldwin now holds a 26-point lead over Whitehead going into the final round at a fan-voted track.