Home Formula 4ADAC F4 Camara tops ADAC F4’s Spa test as round one grid grows by eight

Camara tops ADAC F4’s Spa test as round one grid grows by eight

by Ida Wood

Photo: F4 UAE

An encouragingly large group of 22 drivers turned up for ADAC Formula 4’s pre-event Spa-Francorchamps test on Thursday, ahead of the season start at the circuit this weekend.

There had been a forecast grid of 30 cars, but six entries were withdrawn by Jenzer Motorsport and Van Amersfoort Racing, and Thursday tester Valentin Kluss won’t be racing.

The freshly announced round one addtions, including those who had not revealed any ADAC F4 plans, are Prema’s Charlie Wurz, US Racing’s Marcus Amand, Pedro Perino and Kacper Sztuka, R-ace GP’s Marcos Flack and Frederik Lund, and BWR Motorsports’ duo of Alfio Spina and newly signed German karting graduate Chris Rosenkranz who will do the full season.

R-ace was first on track in testing before red flags came out, and it was Prema’s James Wharton who was on top after hour one. He was demoted to second after 80 minutes by PHM Racing’s Taylor Barnard, who went 0.8 seconds faster.

After a timing error, Prema’s Rafael Camara then emerged ahead going into session one’s final half-hour, having set a 2m23.637s.

More confusion then ensued, as another timing fault led to PHM’s Nikita Bedrin recording laptimes that were over a minute faster than anyone else. It was not rectified and he officially was fastest, although in reality Camara set the pace with a 2m23.232s, heading team-mates Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Wharton.

That was the same top three in session two, although Antonelli led the first hour through to when Jenzer’s Rasmus Joutsimies caused a red flag period. He was only usurped with 41 minutes to go of the 2h50m session, as Camara set a 2m23.260s. Wharton went third fastest at the end, pipping Wurz. Sztuka was fifth, the fastet driver to improve on their session one pace.

Session three ran for 1h19m in the afternoon, and was interrupted by early red flags. PHM’s Jonas Ried initially set the pace, swapping top spot with Kluss, then after a while Barnard came to the fore with a 2m24.299s.

Bedrin bettered that by 0.001s, then with 20 minutes remaining Camara went 0.040s faster as Prema waited until the last half-hour to send out its drivers.

Spina then went 0.032s quicker with 14 minutes to go, but two minutes later Barnard and Amand beat him. Barnard hammered in a lap 0.475s faster than anyone, and his own personal best, but still putting him behind Prema’s drivers in the day’s combined timesheet.

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Test results

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Rafael Camara Prema 2m23.232s 75
2 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Prema 2m23.329s +0.097s 76
3 Taylor Barnard PHM Racing 2m23.657s +0.425s 48
4 James Wharton Prema 2m23.666s +0.434s 78
5 Charlie Wurz Prema 2m23.867s +0.635s 76
6 Alfio Spina BWR Motorsports 2m23.967s +0.735s 64
7 Kacper Sztuka US Racing 2m24.119s +0.887s 70
8 Marcus Amand US Racing 2m24.132s +0.900s 77
9 Nikita Bedrin PHM Racing 2m24.245s +1.013s 78
10 Jonas Ried PHM Racing 2m24.378s +1.146s 59
11 Nikhil Bohra US Racing 2m24.415s +1.183s 68
12 Maya Weug Iron Lynx 2m24.534s +1.302s 79
13 Marcos Flack R-ace GP 2m24.567s +1.335s 74
14 Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi Jenzer Motorsport 2m24.653s +1.421s 82
15 Conrad Laursen Prema 2m24.825s +1.593s 77
16 Rasmus Joutsimies Jenzer Motorsport 2m24.935s +1.703s 60
17 Pedro Perino US Racing 2m25.044s +1.812s 50
18 Ethan Ischer Jenzer Motorsport 2m25.225s +1.993s 80
19 Frederik Lund R-ace GP 2m25.238s +2.006s 77
20 Valentin Kluss PHM Racing 2m25.599s +2.367s 59
21 Chris Rosenkranz BWR Motorsports 2m26.280s +3.048s 47
22 Michael Sauter Sauter Engineering+Design 2m26.842s +3.610s 68