Photo: Luca Bassani
There were three different winners from three different teams in round four of the Brazilian Formula 4 season at Goiania.
Points leader Vinicius Tessaro carried a 10-place grid penalty due to recent sporting and technical infringements. But he had a superb damage control effort to leave his home state race still atop the standings. He arrived to Goiania eight points ahead of Matheus Comparatto, and left 23 points clear.
There were thrree pre-event test sessions, two practice sessions and then qualifying, where the two fastest drivers were Tessaro and Lucca Zucchini. Tessaro was demoted to 11th on the race one grid (using the second-best laptimes from qualifying), which put TMG Racing’s Alvaro Cho on pole.
Cho went on to lead every lap to claim his first single-seater win. Nelson Neto, who has left Bassani Racing for Cavaleiro Sports, finished second and Zucchini was third. Comparatto had his chance to capitalise on Tessaro’s penalty, but went off while attacking on lap one and rejoined at the back of the field.
Both him and Tessaro managed to gain positions after that, and the latter finished fifth behind Luan Lopes. Comparatto finished eighth, getting reversed-grid pole for race two which he dominated with fastest lap.
TMG Racing’s series sophomore Joao Tesser made clever use of a new set of tyres to start and finish second for his first ever podium. Tessaro had used tyres but it did not prevent him from making moves and he came home third.
Zucchini had race three pole but Tessaro made a better launch. Cho also passed the poleman, as Zucchini was soon defending third place from Fernando Barrichello, Lopes and Comparatto.
Barrichello pushed hard to overtake his Cavaleiro Sports team-mate, but Lopes and Comparatto had better tyres and Lopes got inside of Barrichello at turn one. Comparatto followed up two corners later, but Barrichello managed to get back fifth place with a clever use of the slipstream on the main straight.
By mid-race, Tessaro had left the rest of the field far behind while Cho had settled for second and Zucchini was struggling to hold Lopes behind him.
They went side-by-side during almost half of lap nine. Lopes tried to surprise his adversary with a divebomb on the S breaking zone but Zucchini had his car already well placed. Lopes than climbed the rear it and both retired.
Barrichello inherited third place as the safety car was called out, and the top five then made it to the finish with no changes in the order, as Rafaela Ferreira had a strong late-race charge to finish sixth.
Lopes was given a five-place grid penalty for race one of the next round at Interlagos, which is on the Formula 1 support bill.
Results round-up
Race 1 (19 laps)
1 Alvaro Cho TMG Racing 27m09.9652s
2 Nelson Neto Bassani Racing +2.867s
3 Lucca Zucchini Cavaleiro Sports +4.313s
4 Luan Lopes TMG Racing +4.901s
5 Vinicius Tessaro Cavaleiro Sports +5.271s
6 Fernando Barrichello Cavaleiro Sports +8.689s
7 Joao Tesser TMG Racing +12.681s
8 Matheus Comparatto Bassani Racing +14.241s
9 Arthur Pavie Bassani Racing +22.826s
10 Rafaela Ferreira TMG Racing +25.661s
Pole: Cho, 1m24.894s
Fastest lap: Tessaro, 1m25.110s
Race 2 (13 laps)
1 Comparatto 20m05.517s
2 Tesser +2.877s
3 Tessaro +3.742s
4 Barrichello +8.146s
5 Lopes +8.973s
6 Cho +9.500s
7 Pavie +11.276s
8 Neto +11.649s
9 Zucchini +14.081s
10 Ferreira +18.881s
FL: Comparatto, 1m25.281s
Race 3 (18 laps)
1 Tessaro 27m43.262s
2 Cho +2.273s
3 Barrichello +3.469s
4 Comparatto +3.973s
5 Neto +7.830s
6 Ferreira +8.296s
7 Cecilia Rabelo Cavaleiro Sports +11.460s
8 Alexandre Machado Bassani Racing +17.044s
9 Pavie +1 lap
Ret Tesser
P: Zucchini, 1m24.788s
FL: Tessaro, 1m25.110s
Championship standings
1 Tessaro 175 2 Comparatto 152 3 Cho 145 4 Lopes 132 5 Neto 80 6 Zucchini 76 7 Barrichello 64 8 Tesser 62 9 Mateus Callejas 61 10 Pavie 48