Photo: Boxengass Media & PR
The victories were shared across the three races in Danish Formula 4’s penultimate round at Padborg Park.
Team FormulaSport’s Sebastian Gravlund was the driver who topped qualifying, and he was able to open up a big gap at the start of race one following a collision between Theodor Jensen and Magnus Pedersen at the opening corner.
It allowed Julius Dinesen through into second, and he had a 2.5-second gap to overcome through the rest of the race.
He got it down to under under a second on lap 10, and after a few more laps was all over the leader’s gearbox. On the penultimate lap, Gravlund had a bad exit from turn one but somehow remained ahead into turn two. Dinesen got his move done later in the lap, despite his own mistake, then there was yellows at the final corner as Peter Henriksen crashed out as it started to rain.
Dinesen ended up winning by 1.140s from Gravlund, with Pedersen third and Mika Abrahams fourth after getting by Jensen late on.
Oliver Kratsch won the Formula 5 class and started on pole for the reversed grid race two, which counted for little as he stalled and it was Jensen who led the opening lap as Victor Nielsen went deep into the opening corner then had a bit of contact with Jensen.
They spent the race’s first half battling hard, with Gravlund just behind in third, although on lap eight a failed move by Nielsen at turn one allowed Gravlund to get by into second place in the lead group of six.
Eventually that became a pack of four, with Abrahams at the back, but there was no change of positions until the last lap when Gravlund got passed by Nielsen and appeared to pick up a puncture as he then sank to seventh.
Jensen held on to win by 0.587s ahead of Nielsen and 0.979s ahead of Abrahams.
Championship leader Dinesen finished fourth, and had pole for the twilight race three on Saturday. He held off Jensen’s turn one attacks on lap one, but couldn’t do the same on lap two, and then had to sit behind him through a brief safety car period after Abrahams car ground to a halt on track.
Gravlund then demoted Dinesen to third on the restart lap, and two laps later took the lead from Jensen by going around his outside at turn one which then became the inside for turn two.
From there he pulled away to win by 6.69s, with Dinesen challenging Jensen for second through the final laps. Pedersen and Nielsen fought for fifth but their battle got too close and Pedersen ended up dropping to seventh.
Results round-up [F5 entrants in italics]
Race 1 (16 laps)
1 Julius Dinesen STEP Motorsport 17m55.649s
2 Sebastian Gravlund Team FormulaSport +1.140s
3 Magnus Pedersen MP Racing +2.386s
4 Mika Abrahams Team FSP +3.558s
5 Theodor Jensen Team FormulaSport +4.818s
6 Victor Nielsen STEP Motorsport +7.230s
7 Oliver Kratsch Mads Hoe Motorsport +25.538s
8 Peter Henriksen Henriksen Racing +37.055s
9 Mille Hoe Mads Hoe Motorsport +38.596s
Ret Michella Rasmussen Henriksen Racing
Pole: Gravlund, 59.941s
Fastest lap: Dinesen, 1m00.651s
Race 2 (16 laps)
1 Jensen 16m40.404s
2 Nielsen +0.587s
3 Abrahams +0.979s
4 Dinesen +2.312s
5 Pedersen +5.056s
6 Henriksen +12.534s
7 Gravlund +12.587s
8 Kratsch +15.523s
9 Hoe +21.191s
10 Rasmussen +59.169s
FL: Dinesen, 1m01.274s
Race 3 (14 laps)
1 Gravlund 16m04.169s
2 Jensen +6.690s
3 Dinesen +7.187s
4 Nielsen +15.600s
5 Henriksen +23.009s
6 Hoe +23.339s
7 Pedersen +25.915s
8 Rasmussen +45.760s
9 Kratsch +46.106s
Ret Abrahams
FL: Gravlund, 1m00.960s
Championship standings
1 Dinesen 245 2 Gravlund 225 3 Abrahams 186 4 Nielsen 169 5 Pedersen 160 6 Jensen 140 7 Mads Hoe 133 8 Frederik Stena 62 9 Henriksen 51 10 Mille Hoe 43