Febreau inherits victory from Peu at Mayenne

It could have been a dream weekend of Rallycross France for Samuel Peu at Mayenne, beating the established names fair and square on track, but a massive blunder in the Final handed the win to Julien Febreau, who happened to be next in line amid fierce competition in the penultimate round of the 2026 season.
 
Damien Meunier was the dominant force in Qualifying, winning two of the four heats to top the table, but Julien Febreau, Samuel Peu and Davy Jeanney made sure to remember him that he had competition to be worried about, though Meunier’s consistency was a differential when he didn’t have the best times.
 
Semifinal A started with Julien Febreau taking the lead while Emmanuel Moinel blocked the way of Davy Jeanney. With Moinel defending hard from Jeanney, Febreau opened a decent gap, and with multiple overtake attempts failing, Jeanney went earlier to the Joker, with the undercut working pretty well to achieve the second place. Since Febreau was already with the Joker done, Jeanney couldn’t do much to avoid Febreau’s victory, while Moinel kept the third place and Stéphane de Ganay ran away from Knapick to kept the fourth spot.
 
In Semifinal B, Damien Meunier had to go hard on Derek Tohill to get the lead, throwing the Irish driver behind Samuel Peu. Incapable of catching both Meunier and Peu, Tohill went to the Joker on Lap 2 and kept his position, and Peu aborted the pursuit of Meunier in favor of a Joker-assisted undercut, which barely worked as the gap was minimal in favor of Peu, who had to resist other two laps to win the race over Meunier, while Tohill was third and Thomas Fretin secured the Toyota Yaris WRX in the Final after heated battle with Pailler Competition’s Nicolas Briand.
 
In the Final, Febreau and Meunier tried to block Peu and Jeanney but Meunier lost the second position in the move. There was no margin for error with five cars close to each other, and all of them were very prudent with Joker Lap strategy. Despite Febreau clearly holding Peu, this wasn’t bringing Meunier and Jeanney closer, so the JMS driver choose to Joker, with Febreau responding a lap later. Peu and Meunier left it to the final lap, but while Meunier did it right, Peu skipped it completely, being the first to cross the finish line but meeting the disqualification right after the race for not going to the Joker, giving the win to the next in line, who was Julien Febreau.
 
Rallycross France - Mayenne event results
 
Damien Meunier has the luxury of treating the final round at Dreux as a mere formality to lift the 2026 season title, as his 199 points put him exactly 41 points ahead of Jeanney, meaning it would take an absence in qualifying or from the event as a whole to lose it, given that Jeanney scores the maximum points at disposal.
 
PHOTO: Rallycross France