Photo: FWinter Series
US Racing’s Gabriel Gomez will start all three Formula Winter Series races at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit this weekend from pole.
Gomez claimed pole for the first two races in Q1, and made it three out of three in Q2.
Jenzer Motorsport’s Enea Frey was fastest at first in Q1, then US’s Maxim Rehm moved ahead. Frey struck back with a 1m37.699s, but in his slipstream AKM Motorsport’s Guy Albag was able to go even faster. Frey improved again on his next lap though, lowering the pace to 1m34.686s.
It became a battle between Hitech GP’s Leo Robinson and Gomez after that. Robinson posted two personal bests, then Gomez was the first to break into the 1m33s. On the next lap, Robinson took back provisional pole by 0.011 seconds.
He found a further gain of 0.027s, but in the final minutes Gomez set a 1m33.711s and then improved to 1m33.573s after the chequered flag to take race one pole by 0.371s. Rehm was third, ahead of team-mate Kabir Anurag and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maximilian Popov and Dante Vinci.
Hitech’s Fionn McLaughlin, who had topped pre-event testing, was only seventh fastest and his team-mate Thomas Bearman completed a top 13 covered by a second.
Drivers’ second-best laptimes set the race two grid, meaning Gomez was on top again by 0.26s over Robinson. Rehm, Vinci and McLaughlin were half a second slower than him in third, fourth and fifth, and Popov was sixth. Jenzer’s Artem Severiukhin, who was 11th fastest overall, qualified eighth.
Gomez was the 11th and last driver to make their way to the top of the times in Q2, and he clinched his third pole by 0.239s with a lap set four minutes from the end.
Robinson improved on his final effort to qualify second, ahead of Popov and US’s Edu Robinson. Anurag, Rehm and Bearman were closely matched in the next three places, and this time 14 drivers got within a second of Gomez’s pace.
New additions to the grid announced during the race week included Albag, VAR’s Gino Trappa and Cram Motorsport’s Ricardo Miranda Baptista. Trappa won once en route to fifth in the Brazilian Formula 4 standings last year, and is currently 20th in the Spanish F4 Winter Championship, Albag is making his single-seater debut after being WSK Champions Cup runner-up and 41st in the CIK-FIA European championship for OK karts in 2024, and fellow debutant Baptista is stepping up from Brazil’s karting scene.
Results round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Gabriel Gomez US Racing 1m33.573s
2 Leo Robinson Hitech GP +0.371s
3 Maxim Rehm US Racing +0.475s
4 Kabir Anurag US Racing +0.559s
5 Maximilian Popov Van Amersfoort Racing +0.590s
6 Dante Vinci Van Amersfoort Racing +0.631s
7 Fionn McLaughlin Hitech GP +0.729s
8 Edu Robinson US Racing +0.735s
9 Andrija Kostic US Racing +0.755s
10 Bart Harrison Jenzer Motorsport +0.793s
Race 2 grid
1 Gomez 1m33.711s
2 L Robinson +0.260s
3 Rehm +0.507s
4 Vinci +0.558s
5 McLaughlin +0.599s
6 Popov +0.643s
7 E Robinson +0.679s
8 Artem Severiukhin Jenzer Motorsport +0.709s
9 Harrison +0.730s
10 Anurag +0.735s
Race 3 grid
1 Gomez 1m33.415s
2 L Robinson +0.239s
3 Popov +0.323s
4 E Robinson +0.394s
5 Anurag +0.416s
6 Rehm +0.419s
7 Thomas Bearman Hitech GP +0.468s
8 Vinci +0.528s
9 Enea Frey Jenzer Motorsport +0.544s
10 McLaughlin +0.592s