Photo: F4 CEZ/Petr Fryba
Jenzer Motorsport’s Elia Weiss was in excellent form in the fourth round of the Central European Formula 4 championship at Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic at the start of August.
After losing out to team-mate Max Karhan in qualifying by just 0.007s, the German driver, son of former F3 racer, Claudia Hurtgen, won both his heats from the outside of the front row before converting pole to claim victory over another Jenzer driver, Teo Borenstein, in the final.
A delighted Weiss told Formula Scout that “I struggled a little bit in qualifying, but we’ve always managed to have great race starts and great safety car restarts, which was the key this weekend. It is quite difficult to overtake on this track so that’s just what made the difference and how we could win three races.”
With a massive 40-car entry, competitors were split into groups with each driver starting two heats, with the top 32 progressing to Sunday’s final.
The weekend’s track action was limited by the number of safety cars and red flags, possibly due to the number of cars on track. Series promoter, Josef Krenek, later conceded that “it is possible that our championship has grown faster than we have.” After a weekend where the stewards, technical scrutineers and the promoter himself had been criticised, Krenek appealed for an atmosphere of “fairness, integrity, respect and mutual support.”
Weiss handled the stop-start nature of the races, and the resulting restarts with aplomb, admitting that “it’s definitely hard with the red flags to get back into the rhythm but I felt I could do it quite well and that’s what made us win in the end.”
Borenstein, who is being guided this year by Tomas Enge, was Weiss’s closest challenger throughout, but had to make do with three second place finishes, albeit rather fortuitously in his second heat.
Ella Hakkinen, daughter of double World Champion Mika, was undoubtedly the centre of spectator attention all weekend, not least because she was racing at home in the Czech Republic for the first time. The McLaren junior, with Mika watching carefully from the pits, produced her best performances of the year with two fifth places, before being taken out in the final.
Karhan managed to convert his pole position into victory in a wet opening heat, pulling out a gap at the flag despite a mid-race mistake which had allowed Borenstein to close the gap.
After getting the drop on Borenstein to take the lead on the long drag to the tight Turn 1 chicane, Weiss was never threatened, calmly dealing with two safety car restarts after red flags had suspended racing.
The race was not restarted after a second red flag after Borenstein lost his front wing following contact, dropping to the back of the field as he limped towards the pits.
With little debris and no cars in dangerous places, the red flag provoked controversy in the pitlane, as results were declared as at the end of the previous lap, promoting the Czech driver back to second.
Heat three brought together Karhan and Weiss, the two race winners, but it was again the German driver who outdragged his rival into the first corner. Sadly, the race was again marred by two red flags, with the race again brought to an early conclusion.
Maintaining the weekend’s pattern, the final was also twice interrupted by red flags. Weiss made a perfect getaway from pole to head his battling team-mates, Karhan and Borenstein, into Turn 1. Behind them, Alexia Danielsson ploughed into the cars in front, eliminating five cars, including all three front-running women drivers, Hakkinen, Mathilde Paatz and Danielsson herself.
Another flawless restart kept Weiss in the lead, as Borenstein fought past Karhan, who subsequently dropped back to fifth at the flag.
Maffi Racing’s David Walther, championship leader coming to Most, struggled all weekend, blaming a down-on-power engine, but did enough to salvage three third places to remain in touch with Weiss at the top of the standings.
Weiss himself is optimistic going into the final two rounds at Brno and the Hungaroring. “I think we’re looking quite good, and I’m quite confident for the moment. This was a perfect weekend, so hopefully we can reproduce this, and we’ll see if we can come out on top.”
Championship standings
1 Weiss 229 2 Walther 215 3 Borenstein 205 4 Karhan 184 5 Simon Rechenmacher 117 6 Markas Silkunas 114 7 Aleksandar Bogunovic 101 8 Georgiy Zasov 87 9 Francesco Pio Coppola 80 10 Paatz 54