Fluxa fastest in Spanish F4 testing at Algarve as calendar gets updated

Photo: Gedlich Racing/Daniel Burgin

Preparations for the 2024 Spanish Formula 4 season moved to Portugal this week as teams tested at Algarve.

The Portuguese track hosts round two of the season on June 7-9, with racing get underway a month earlier. Navarra was due to host the season opener on May 10-12, but on March 22 it was announced that the championship will instead be visiting Jarama on that date.

Rounds three and four take place at Paul Ricard and Motorland Aragon in July, and initially there was a month-long gap before round five at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit. But on January 16 the calendar was updated, with the trip to Valencia being postponed by two weeks to September 13-15, and with the following round at Jerez being postponed by one week to October 4-6. Barcelona hosts the season finale on November 8-10.

The Algarve test took place over two days, and on Wednesday the pace was set by MP Motorsport’s Griffin Peebles. His fastest lap, a 1m45.013s, put him on top by just 0.089 seconds over Drivex School’s Juan Cota and by 0.095s over Rodin Motorsport’s Thomas Strauven.

Both Campos Racing’s Jan Przyrowski and MP’s Lucas Fluxa set 1m45.148s laps to be joint fourth fastest, and Campos’s Andres Cardenas completed a top six covered by 0.217s. There were 35 cars on track, with 24 drivers lapping within a second of the pace, and slowest of all was Global Racing Service’s new signing Alexander Jacoby.

He joined Fernando Alonso’s A14 Management stable a week ago, and the 14-year-old will not make his Spanish F4 debut until round two when he turns 15. Last year he came 61st in SuperKarts USA’s Pro Tour then 10th in its SuperNationals event for X30 Junior karts.

Thursday was split into two test sessions, and Fluxa topped the first with a 1m44.576s. He was fastest by a tiny 0.004s over Peebles, with Keanu Al Azhari (MP), Mattia Colnaghi (MP), Strauven and Cardenas all within 0.2s of the lowered pace. There were 12 drivers who beat the benchmark from Wednesday, and 0.925s covered the top 23.

Campos’s Enzo Tarnvanichkul and Tecnicar Motorsport’s Lorenzo Castillo were the only drivers not to improve on their previous pace.

The afternoon session was topped by Campos’s Nathan Tye, a 1m44.776s putting him 0.141s ahead of team-mate Jan Przyrowski and 0.184s up on Strauven. There were 20 drivers within a second of Tye’s pace, and he was one of only four drivers to set personal bests. The others were Sainteloc Racing’s Yevan David, Tecnicar’s Sacha van’t Pad Bosch and GRS’s underage tester Niccolo Maccagani.

Drivex’s Matus Ryba was absent from both Thursday sessions.

Test results