In qualifying he took third place on the grid, just 0.7 seconds behind the Brit Matthew Watts in the March 772 and Alex Kapadia in the March 782. “I drove the qualifying on the used tires from the Historic GP France in Le Castellet, the new set “It’s only in the races here, which are more important to me than the pole position in qualifying,” Kaufmann gives insight.
 
After another rolling start to race one - “Rolling starts annoy me, Formula 2 used to include standing Grand Prix starts,” said Kaufmann - the Westwood native barely needed two laps to take the lead.
 
He then gained a larger lead, helped by the fact that his direct pursuers “slowed each other down” in a fighting group. “The only cars in the field that filled the starting grid were a Formula 5000 and a Formula Atlantic,” reported Kaufmann, “which created hairy situations for us when lapping!” 
 
Towards the end of the race, four Formula 2 drivers caught up with them, but to be on the safe side, they all waited until the next straight before lapping - behind me, as the leader, I had already slowed down a bit in order to safely bring home the victory. So suddenly Matthew Watts was breathing down my neck and I had to really 'fire up' right up to the end in order to win.” Kaufmann won by just under six seconds ahead of Watts.
 
At the start of race two, Briton Watts got off better, but “Piranha grabbed” the rear of his car for several laps. “I was close, closer, we were about the same speed,” said Kaufmann. Four laps before the end, a competitor spun and the safety car phase that followed lasted until the last lap. 
 
“When the safety car drove back into the pits,” says the man from Molsberg, “we could only accelerate a few hundred meters before the checkerboard flag ended the race. I lost to Matthew by a narrow margin, 0.6 seconds behind.”