Photo: F4 Spain
Nikola Tsolov brought his tally of Spanish Formula 4 poles up to 14 in the penultimate qualifying session of the season at Barcelona.
The Campos Racing driver earned pole position for races one and two of the weekend by topping Q1 by just 0.004 seconds over MP Motorsport’s Timoteusz Kucharczyk.
MP’s Christian Ho was first to top the times, with JHR Developments’ returnee Noah Lisle next to move ahead.
Tsolov rapidly improved the pace and got it down to 1m48.239s, with Kirill Smal and Kucharczyk in second and third.
There was more pace to be found in the second half of the session, with Tsolov setting a 1m47.502s and Ho rising back up into second place with a 1m47.649s lap. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak went third fastest, but he was shuffled back down the order by the next round of improvements as Tsolov broke into the 1m46s.
With just under three-and-a-half minutes to go, Tsolov set a 1m46.734s lap and Kucharczyk followed him across the line with a lap just 0.004s slower.
Neither could improve after that, and at the end of qualifying Tsolov just mistimed it by meeting the chequered flag half a second after it came out and not getting the chance to set another late lap.
His team-mate Hugh Barter went third fastest and he did set a late improvement to go 0.050s slower than Tsolov, while Smal also improved in fourth to end the session 0.173s behind.
Ho qualified fifth, with Campos duo Noah Stromsted and Georg Kelstrup in sixth and seventh, and Inthraphuvasak in eighth.
On second-best laptimes, Tsolov claimed pole for race two by four hundreths of a second over Barter, with Kucharczyk 0.197s back in third. Ho pipped Smal to fourth place, with Stromsted and Kelstrup in the same positions again.
Monlau Motorsport’s Jonas Ried was the highest placed of the Spanish F4 debutants for the weekend, going 16th fastest and qualifying 14th for race two, while at the back of the grid for both races is Global Racing Service’s Daniel Mavlyutov who failed to set a lap and therefore will require permission to start.
Results round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Nikola Tsolov Campos Racing 1m46.734s
2 Timoteusz Kucharczyk MP Motorsport +0.004s
3 Hugh Barter Campos Racing +0.050s
4 Kirill Smal MP Motorsport +0.173s
5 Christian Ho MP Motorsport +0.278s
6 Noah Stromsted Campos Racing +0.352s
7 Georg Kelstrup Campos Racing +0.588s
8 Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak MP Motorsport +0.806s
9 Robert de Haan Monlau Motorsport +0.809s
10 Valerio Rinicella MP Motorsport +0.862s
Race 2 grid
1 Tsolov 1m46.803s
2 Barter +0.040s
3 Kucharczyk +0.197s
4 Ho +0.225s
5 Smal +0.266s
6 Stromsted +0.516s
7 Kelstrup +0.577s
8 Rinicella +0.805s
9 Inthraphuvasak +0.813s
10 de Haan +1.077s