Noah Monteiro on Spanish F4 Winter Championship pole at Jarama

Photo: Spanish Winter Championship

Campos Racing’s Noah Monteiro claimed pole position in the first qualifying session of the second Spanish Formula 4 Winter Championship round at Jarama.

Friday began with pre-event testing, which was topped by Rocco Coronel. He set a 1m32.125s to lead MP Motorsport team-mate Reno Francot by 0.166 seconds, Campos’s Daniel Kelleher by 0.187s and MP’s Borys Lyzen by 0.195s. A second covered the top 24 in the 32-car field.

Two free practice sessions followed later in the day, and Kelleher was quickest in both. His 1m32.231s in FP1 put him 0.078s ahead of Coronel, his closest rival in FP2, and 0.085s clear of Francot.

Nathan Tye (Drivex School), Vivek Kanthan (Campos), Monteiro and Lyzen were next up, with Lyzen improving in FP2 to be 0.205s off.  A quarter of a second split the top nine, and 23 drivers were within a second of the pace once again.

Qualifying one was on Saturday morning, and Lysen was first to the top in the 20-minute session. It was not until six-and-a-half minutes in that he was pushed off top spot, with Coronel setting a 1m32.487s to lead team-mate Kasper Schormans by 0.313s and Lyzen by 0.466s.

Fracnot lapped 0.035s shy of Coronel as Lyzen pitted, the only driver to do so. MP’s Felipe Reijs got into third place after eight minutes, 0.008s ahead of Schormans, at which point only 14 drivers had laid down representative laptimes.

That number soon increased to 20, and G4 Racing’s Jean Paul Karras went seventh fastest with a laptime 0.535s off Coronel’s benchmark and 0.015s quicker than brother Philippe Armand’s best.

Coronel headed to the pits at the end of the session’s first half, and was promptly demoted to second by Tye who set a 1m32.254s. His team-mate Jensen Burnett jumped up to fourth, before TC Racing’s Maria Germano Neto went third fastest with a 1m32.501s.

Tye lowered the pace to 1m31.999s, as team-mate Simon Bulbarella matched Germano. Everyone was now on track, and had recorded flying laps.

Kanthan trimmed Tye’s advantage to 0.286s with eight minutes to go, then Tecnicar Motorsport’s Nacho Tunon reduced it further to 0.248s. Kanthan found himself in fifth, as Kelleher and Bulbarella outpaced him. At the same time, Tecnicar’s Andrej Petrovic jumped 10 spots to sixth, while Campos’s Ty Fisher languished in 26th.

Monteiro hit the top with less than six-and-a-half minutes remaining of qualifying, posting a 1m31.839s, and half a minute later TC Racing’s Beau Lowette surprised by going third fastest after previously being in 23rd place. Fisher also improved to sit fifth, 0.411s off the provisional poleman.

Tunon took third place with five minutes to go, but failed to break the 1m32s barrier, and Petrovic set a personal best to be fourth. A few seconds later they were each demoted two places as Monteiro set a new 1m31.644s benchmark. Kanthan got within 0.234s of it, and Kelleher pipped Tunon by 0.011s to fourth.

Fisher lapped 0.027s shy of Kanthan three minutes from the end, and Coronel climbed from 17th to sixth before another improvement on his next lap put him third and just 0.001s ahead of Fisher.

Francot also re-entered the top 10 in the last two minutes, and just before the chequered flag Kelleher got into second with a laptime 0.197s off Monteiro’s best but has a five-place grid penalty to serve. The poleman was in the pits along with Germano, and no other drivers improved.

Qualifying results