Home News Inthraphuvasak pips Tsolov to race three pole in Spanish F4 at Algarve

Inthraphuvasak pips Tsolov to race three pole in Spanish F4 at Algarve

by Roger Gascoigne

Photo: F4 UAE

Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak pipped Nikola Tsolov by just 0.019 seconds to take pole for race three of the opening round of the Spanish Formula 4 championship at Algarve.

The MP Motorsport driver moved to the top of the times in the final minutes of qualifying on Sunday morning with a 1m45.423s lap, and slow third sector splits for the frontrunners on the final flying lap of the session prevented any last-minute improvements and secured Inthraphuvasak pole.

Campos Racing’s Tsolov was unable to complete a hat-trick of pole positions after dominating Q1 on Saturday.

Tymoteusz Kucharczyk took third for MP, ahead of Campos duo Georg Kelstrup and Filip Jenic, and the quintet were seperated by just 0.089s.

MP’s Valerio Rinicella will start sixth in race three, ahead of race one winner, Hugh Barter, and is still suffering from a hand injury incurred on Saturday.

Early pacesetter Christian Ho was unable to match others’ improvements late in Q2 and had dropped to ninth by the chequered flag, just behind fellow MP driver Suleiman Zanfari, with Jesse Carrasquedo Jr rounding out the top 10 for Campos.

Kirill Smal appeared to have made progress after his last-minute signature for MP, although also fell back at the end having been second fastest earlier in the session.

In order to comply with Spanish F4’s new rule limiting each team to a maximum of four entries, both MP and Campos have split their driving line-ups between two similarly-named teams.

Track limits again caused problems for a number of drivers, with Jorge Campos and Ricardo Gracia receiving reprimands from the stewards for repeated infractions.

‘MP Motorsports’ will run Miron Pingasov and Zanfari, while Inthraphuvasak and Kucharczyk are listed in the official standings as entries for ‘MP Motorsport’. It appears that all of Campos’s drivers are with ‘Campos Racing’ except for Carrasquedo.

Qualifying results

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak MP Motorsport 1m45.423s 9
2 Nikola Tsolov Campos Racing 1m45.442s +0.019s 9
3 Tymoteusz Kucharczyk MP Motorsport 1m45.463s +0.040s 9
4 Georg Kelstrup Campos Racing 1m45.494s +0.071s 9
5 Filip Jenic Campos Racing 1m45.512s +0.089s 9
6 Valerio Rinicella MP Motorsport 1m45.554s +0.131s 9
7 Hugh Barter Campos Racing 1m45.602s +0.179s 9
8 Suleiman Zanfari MP Motorsport 1m45.660s +0.237s 9
9 Christian Ho MP Motorsport 1m45.694s +0.271s 9
10 Jesse Carrasquedo Jr Campos Racing 1m45.770s +0.347s 9
11 Bruno del Pino Drivex School 1m45.808s +0.385s 8
12 Kirill Smal MP Motorsport 1m45.837s +0.414s 9
13 Robert De Haan VAR/Monlau Motorsport 1m45.922s +0.499s 8
14 Alvaro Garcia Formula de Campeones 1m45.970s +0.547s 9
15 Ricardo Escotto Cram Motorsport 1m45.971s +0.548s 8
16 Daniel Nogales Teo Martin Motorsport 1m45.993s +0.570s 8
17 Sebastian Gravlund MP Motorsport 1m46.015s +0.592s 8
18 Gael Julien Drivex School 1m46.027s +0.604s 8
19 Max Arkhangselskiy Drivex School 1m46.037s +0.614s 8
20 Noah Lisle Drivex School 1m46.049s +0.626s 8
21 Max Mayer Formula de Campeones 1m46.119s +0.696s 8
22 Miron Pingasov MP Motorsport 1m46.264s +0.841s 9
23 Ricardo Gracia GRS 1m46.272s +0.849s 8
24 Manuel Espirito Santo Teo Martin Motorsport 1m46.307s +0.884s 8
25 Vladislav Ryabov GRS 1m46.328s +0.905s 8
26 Anshul Gandhi Cram Motorsport 1m46.340s +0.917s 8
27 Lola Lovinfosse Teo Martin Motorsport 1m46.408s +0.985s 8
28 Lucas Malek Teo Martin Motorsport 1m46.493s +1.070s 8
29 Jef Machiels VAR/Monlau Motorsport 1m46.877s +1.454s 8
30 Jorge Campos Formula de Campeones 1m46.895s +1.472s 8