Photo: F4 CEZ
Formula 4 Central European Zone has published a six-round calendar for 2026, featuring visits to two Formula 1 tracks.
Besides from F1’s F4-spec support series F1 Academy, the only other F4 championships confirmed to also race on more than one F1 track next year are British F4 and the renamed F4 United Arab Emirates and will do so by taking trips abroad.
The 2026 F4 CEZ season will begin on April 10-12 at the Red Bull Ring, home of Austrian Grand Prix, then there will be a lengthy break before round two at the Salzburgring on May 29-31.
After two Austrian rounds, racing moves to Slovakia a week later at Slovakia Ring, then to the Czech Republic almost two months later. Autodrom Most hosts round four on July 31-August 2, and there will be races at Brno on September 11-13.
The final round is at the Hungaroring, where the Hungarian Grand Prix takes place, on October 23-25.
Brno, the Red Bull Ring Ring and Slovakia Ring have been mainstays of the calendar since the series launched in 2022 as ACCR F4, Most has featured every year since 2023 and there have been trips to the Salzburgring for the last two seasons.
The Hungaroring held the opening round of the 2023 season, with fellow Hungarian track Balaton Park being used for that year’s season finale then taking over the round one slot in 2024.
An in-season test will precede each round next year, with weekends taking the format of a pre-event test session, a 40-minute practice session, 20-minute qualifying then three 25-minute races.
Race one’s grid will continue to be set by the results of qualifying, race two’s grid will now use drivers’ second-best qualifying laptimes rather than race one’s results, and a draw will be used to determine how many positions from race one’s results get reversed to form race three’s grid. There will be five possible outcomes, ranging from the top eight to the top 12 being flipped.
F4 CEZ has attracted Harp Racing and Step Motorsport to the grid for 2026. Step has run a driver to the Danish F4 title twice, and is heading south-east from Denmark with three cars. Italian outfit Harp comes from the Formula X Pro Series, where it runs two first-generation F4 cars. It has brought a Gen2 chassis so it can race in an FIA F4 championship next year.
Danish-Swedish karter Erik Poulsen will step up to single-seaters with Step, and Polish hillclimber and touring car racer Piotr Orcholski will contest the second half of the 2026 season with Harp after turning 15.
Poulsen came 10th in the FIA Academy Trophy for ‘Academy Junior’ class karts this year, and 23rd in the ‘Academy Senior’ class last year.
Harp has also collaborated with Champion Cup kart, the rental karting competition in Italy, to offer F4 testing to its winner.