Photo: ADAC
PHM Racing’s Nikita Bedrin took a dominant first win of the ADAC Formula 4 season in treacherous conditions at the Lausitzring, finishing 14.4 seconds ahead of team-mate Taylor Barnard.
Bedrin made a perfect getaway from the second row to head the field into the opening corner and simply drove away from his rivals at over a second per lap as the wet track caught out many of his competitors.
With Prema absent this weekend, Barnard’s second place moves him ahead of Rafael Camara in the overall standings, closing the gap to leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli to 84 points.
At the Berlin-based team’s local race, the PHM duo were in a different class from the rest of the field, with plenty of spins through the field as the rain and mist worsened during the shortened race.
The tricky conditions caught out several drivers, including front-row starter Kacper Sztuka, before the race even got underway and the third PHM entry of Valentin Kluss was forced to start from the back after problems on the second warm-up lap.
All three US Racing cars bogged down at the start on the wetter inside of the track, allowing Jenzer Motorsport’s Rasmus Joutsimies to take third ahead of Michael Sauter, up to an incredible fourth from ninth on the grid.
Sauter, racing for his family-run Sauter Engineering+Design team, was on a charge and on lap two passed Joutsimies for third.
While an off in the infield section on the following lap dropped him back to fifth, Sauter was soon back onto the tail of the battle for third with a recovering Sztuka having caught up with Joutsimies but unable to find a way past in the spray.
Sauter sailed past Sztuka on the banked final turn on lap nine, before overtaking Joutsimies a few corners later. Sadly, he was unable to get the car stopped in time to make the corner, running wide and falling back to fifth once again.
Joutsimies held off Sztuka for the final podium position and top rookie honours, with US racing’s Sauber-backed debutant Zachary David emerging from an exciting battle with Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi and Jonas Ried to take sixth after a spin from Ried on the last lap.
Race result
| Pos | Driver | Team | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikita Bedrin | PHM Racing | 17 laps |
| 2 | Taylor Barnard | PHM Racing | +14.419s |
| 3 | Rasmus Joutsimies | Jenzer Motorsport | +33.460s |
| 4 | Kacper Sztuka | US Racing | +35.047s |
| 5 | Michael Sauter | Sauter Engineering+Design | +41.229s |
| 6 | Zachary David | US Racing | +1m11.877s |
| 7 | Jonas Ried | PHM Racing | +1m27.668s |
| 8 | Samir Ben | Jenzer Motorsport | +1m29.916s |
| 9 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Jenzer Motorsport | +1m44.584s |
| 10 | Ruiqi Liu | US Racing | +1m44.672s |
| Ret | Valentin Kluss | PHM Racing | |
| Fastest lap: Bedrin, 1m37.119s
Championship standings |
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