Photo: Spanish F4
The Spanish Formula 4 season ended at Barcelona with a double win for MP Motorsport’s champion Kas Haverkort.
The Dutchman built a strong lead in the opening few laps of race one from pole, as team-mate Thomas ten Brinke lost places off the line to drop from third to fifth and Oliver Goethe challenged Mari Boya for second.
Ten Brike then started a recovery, taking fourth place on lap three and then reclaiming third on lap seven of 15. While he was the quickest driver on track, Boya had also reduced Haverkort’s lead back down from 2.6 seconds to 1.4s. That ballooned again once ten Brinke got into Boya’s mirrors, but it took until two laps to go that ten Brinke could make use of his pace to sweep around the outside of Boya at Turn 1.
With the time left he couldn’t hunt down Haverkort, while Boya almost fell into the clutches of MP team-mate Joshua Dufek.
Drivex’s Ivan Nosov and Global Racing Service’s Lorenzo Fluxa drove well to finish fifth and sixth, with Nosov’s team-mate Paul-Adrien Pallot coming onto their tail at the end as the bottom half of the order frequently changed.
Haverkort won with a healthy margin again in race two, helped once more by his fastest opponent having to fight their way through to second.
This time it was Nosov, from fifth on the grid. The Russian’s first pass was inside Dufek at Turn 5 on lap two, and he went around the outside of Goethe at Turn 1 on lap five. He picked the inside line to take second from ten Brinke two laps later, but once in the position he failed to reduce Haverkort’s race lead.
Boya later passed ten Brinke for third, and Drivex’s Lena Buhler claimed fifth after pressuring Dufek for the position.
Ten Brinke took pole for the season finale, and converted it into a comfortable first single-seater win as Haverkort was forced to defend second place from Boya late on. Boya was faster, but just couldn’t find a way past.
Fourth place for Dufek meant he dropped one point behind part-time entrant ten Brinke in the battle for third in the standings.
Results round-up
Race 1 (15 laps)
1 Kas Haverkort MP Motorsport 27m18.924s
2 Tomas ten Brinke MP Motorsport +3.107s
3 Mari Boya MP Motorsport +7.455s
4 Joshua Dufek MP Motorsport +8.009s
5 Ivan Nosov Drivex School +11.432s
6 Lorenzo Fluxa Global Racing Service +12.087s
7 Paul-Adrien Pallot Drivex School +12.320s
8 Quique Bordas Praga F4 +18.703s
9 Carles Martinez Praga F4 +18.889s
10 Lena Buhler Drivex School +18.982s
Pole: Haverkort, 1m46.254s
Fastest lap: ten Brinke, 1m47.418s
Race 2 (11 laps)
1 Haverkort 19m56.153s
2 Nosov +4.269s
3 Boya +4.554s
4 ten Brinke +7.973s
5 Buhler +9.984s
6 Dufek +11.019s
7 Pallot +11.362s
8 Oliver Goethe MP Motorsport +12.640s
9 Bordas +16.267s
10 Martinez +18.100s
P: Haverkort, 1m46.271s
FL: Boya, 1m47.698s
Race 3
1 ten Brinke 15 laps
2 Haverkort +5.352s
3 Boya +5.696s
4 Dufek +8.890s
5 Nosov +9.955s
6 Fluxa +13.709s
7 Goethe +18.977s
8 Martinez +21.437s
9 Pallot +21.531s
10 Bordas +22.758s
P: ten Brinke, 1m46.179s
FL: Boya, 1m47.690s
Championship standings
1 Haverkort 385 2 Boya 272 3 ten Brinke 187 4 Dufek 186 5 Goethe 135 6 Fluxa 100 7 Nosov 84 8 Bordas 82 9 Valdemar Eriksen 57 10 Martinez 56