Huovinen claims victory in first SMP F4 race

Photo: F4 NEZ Championship by SMP Racing

Aleksanteri Huovinen was victorious in SMP F4’s first-ever season opener at Ahvenisto.

The 18-year-old driver passed pole-sitter Vladimir Atoev at the start and confidently led the way.

Niko Kari also sneaked past Atoev off the line, going on to complete Finnish 1-2 in the race.

While the top three of Huovinen, Kari and Atoev pulled away from the rest of the field early on, a fierce battle emerged between Joel Eriksson and Nikita Troitskiy for fourth.

Unable to get past the Swede for many laps, Troitskiy tried an overly ambitious move, hitting Eriksson into a spin and ruining his suspension.

Practically at the same time, another big incident happened between Niclas Nylund and Semen Evstigneev, both of them hitting the barrier at a high speed.

As a result, the safety car interrupted the action and since it was impossible to clear the track in time, the race was not restarted afterwards.

Nerses Isaakyan?took fourth ahead of Enaam Ahmed, who completed a good recovery, having started 15th.

Italian F4 graduate Ivan Matveev was sixth, followed by Artem Kabakov, Nikita Sitnikov, Aleksander Maslennikov. Alexey Korneev had to settle for tenth, having qualified fifth but nearly stalling at the start.

Race one results