Deligny earns first Spanish F4 win after Ho gets track limits penalty

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

The Spanish Formula 4 championship had a crazy opening day of action at Motorland Aragon, which finished with Enzo Deligny taking his maiden car racing win.

There were two practice sessions in the morning, and the first was interrupted by red flags. Campos Racing’s Christian Ho was fastest at that point, which was 10 minutes from the end, although during the stoppage he had his fastest lap deleted.

After the restart his team-mate Andres Cardenas was handed a three-minute stop-go penalty, then in the last four minutes Pedro Clerot (MP Motorsport), Carl Bennett (Global Racing Service) and Cardenas got black flagged.

Ho was displaced from the top with 16 seconds left of the session, as MP’s Valerio Rinicella set a 1m59.979s to go fastest.

A hungry Ho struck back in FP2, setting a 1m59.729s that made him fastest by 0.215s over Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael. Rinicella was among the eight drivers in the 32-car field not to improve their pace in the second session, while track limits abuse meant the stewards were busy handing out punishments.

Bennett got a stop-go penalty then was black flagged, while Drivex School’s Juan Cota, Daniel Nogales and Maxi Restrepo all got three-minute stop-go penalties before being black flagged.

Alessandro Silvaggi (Cram Motorsport), Alvise Rodella (MP) and Griffin Peebles (Tecnicar Motorsport) joined the list of drivers who got three-minute stop-go penalties, while Deligny, Keanu Al Azhari (MP), Eric Gene (Tecnicar), Nael, Luciano Morano (Sainteloc) and Hiyu Yamakoshi (Tecnicar) all got black flagged.

The pace was slightly slower in qualifying, as Ho took race one pole with a 2m00.007s lap. He was 0.157s faster than Deligny in second place, with 28 of the 32 drivers having laps deleted over track limits violations.

Ho converted pole into a lights-to-flag win, only for the issue of track limits to get in the way again. He was one of seven drivers to be penalised two seconds for repeated track limits abuse, and it cost him victory to Deigny by 0.924s.

Deligny had pressured Ho for a few laps in the final third of the race, but Ho responded towards the end. However with the penalty notice not coming through until it was too late, he did not push to make a gap big enough to secure victory.

Rinicella pressured Campos’s Noah Stromsted over third place for much of the race but could not get past, while Matteo De Palo and Jesse Carrasquedo Jr fought race-long over what would be seventh. Carrasquedo snatched the position at the end, only for a track limits penalty to drop him back behind.

On the penultimate lap, Al Azhari’s car came to a stop on track and he retired from fifth place.

Race result (16 laps)