Photo: Spanish F4
Christian Ho has boosted any hopes of snatching the Spanish Formula 4 title by taking a double pole position for the first two races of the Barcelona season finale.
Campos Racing driver Ho was 65 points behind series leader Theophile Nael with 75 up for grabs across the final weekend, and has taken two bonus points for topping Saturday’s first qualifying session.
Ho was the first driver to dip into the 1m41s, closely followed by Nael. With six minutes to go, he extended his advantage with a lap of 1m41.288s, and reduced his best to a 1m41.230s soon afterwards.
With neither of those laps being bettered by the rest of the field, Ho clinched a double pole.
Nael meanwhile would end up sixth for Sainteloc Racing with what was his only competitive and legal time of the session, having been one of many to have laps deleted for exceeding track limits.
Based on second-fastest times, Nael is set to line up only 30th of the 34 cars for race two of the weekend. He may already be champion by then, though, as he only needs to score 10 points this weekend to clinch the title.
Ho’s Campos team-mate Enzo Deligny and MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella are the other drivers maintaining a slim title chance and claimed second and third on the grid for both races one and two.
Ricardo Gracia qualified fourth for Monlau Motorsport, with Campos driver Noah Stromsted in fifth.
Brazilian karter Gabriel Gomez, second in this year’s European Karting Championship in the senior OK class, is making his car racing debut this weekend with Cram Motorsport.
He was 24th in qualifying, one position ahead of Akshay Bohra who is making his debut in the Spanish series with MP Motorsport after finishing eighth in Italian F4 this year with US Racing.
The third and final addition to the field this weekend is Luis Carlos Perez – fourth in NACAM F4 in 2022 – with GRS.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Christian Ho Campos Racing 1m41.230s
2 Enzo Deligny Campos Racing +0.151s
3 Valerio Rinicella MP Motorsport +0.494s
4 Ricardo Gracia Monlau Motorsport +0.628s
5 Noah Stromsted Campos Racing +0.637s
6 Theophile Nael Sainteloc Racing +0.639s
7 Matteo de Palo Campos Racing +0.644s
8 Noah Lisle Rodin Carlin +0.844s
9 Jesse Carrasquedo Campos Racing +0.853s
10 Alex Ninovic Rodin Carlin +0.866s
Race 2 grid
1 Ho 1m41.288s
2 Deligny +0.178s
3 Rinicella +0.579s
4 Stromsted +0.589s
5 De Palo +0.605s
6 Gracia +0.759s
7 Carrasquedo +0.795s
8 Ninovic +0.838s
9 Lisle +0.845s
10 Pablo Sarrazin Monlau Motorsport +0.940s