Photo: Roger Gascoigne
One week on from FIA Formula 3 victory at Spa-Francorchamps, Jenzer Motorsport topped a podium again as Ethan Ischer won Formula 4 Central European Zone race one at Autodrom Most.
It was Ischer’s third win of the season, and the first since his double in the opening round at the Hungaroring, allowing him to close the gap to team-mate Reno Francot in the standings.
Ischer secured pole in Saturday morning’s qualifying session but was beaten off the line by Michael Sauter, driving for the family-run Sauter Engineering+Design team.
Sauter held the inside line for the turns 1/2 chicane, forcing Ischer to slot in behind, but had already incurred a 10-second time penalty for jumping the start. He explained to Formula Scout after the race that he had been unable to prevent his car from rolling slightly on the downhill start.
Sauter was unable to break clear and a slight mistake allowed Ischer to close onto his tail, before outbraking his Swiss compatriot into turn one on lap nine of 16.
Once in front Ischer quickly extended his lead, and finished 3.16s ahead of Francot who had demoted Sauter to third on lap 10 with an identical move into turn one.
A jubilant Ischer explained after the race that he had been aware of Sauter’s penalty from the second lap, “so I tried to make a bit of pressure and to wait for a mistake”.
“Actually, I was a bit faster so I just took the opportunity to go back in front. I saw that he braked a bit too early in T1 so I just waited to just brake a bit later and make my space into T1,” he said.
Behind the top three on track, SAPE Motorsport’s Miroslav Mikes was enjoying his best race of the season, jumping to fourth at the start ahead of the third Jenzer entry of Mathias Bjerre Jakobsen.
Mikes closed onto Sauter’s tail in the closing laps but was unable to challenge for third on-the-road. The Czech driver was, however, another to be penalised, the added 10s dropping him to fifth in the final classification.
As a result of the penalties, Jacobsen inherited the final podium position to give Jenzer a clean sweep of trophies from the race.
Gender Racing’s Oliver Michl had a lonely time in sixth place, and behind two Czech rookies fought over seventh. Jan Rieger was one, driving for the debuting JMT Racing team which had only just taken delivery of its car, and the other was Max Karhan who was in a fourth Jenzer entry.
With virtually no testing behind them, the two local racers acquitted themselves well on the step up to F4, with Rieger snatching the position in the final laps having tracked Karhan from the start.
The Austrian Renauer Motorsport team, represented so far this season by Niko Taylor and Jiri Safranek, is absent from the Most event.
Results
Race 1 (16 laps)
1 Ethan Ischer Jenzer Motorsport 25m13.899s
2 Reno Francot Jenzer Motorsport +3.160s
3 Mathias Bjerre Jakobsen Jenzer Motorsport +9.545s
4 Michael Sauter Sauter Engineering+Design +14.269s
5 Miroslav Mikes SAPE Motorspor +14.412s
6 Oliver Michl Gender Racing Team +17.364s
7 Jan Rieger JMT Racing +30.296s
8 Max Karhan Jenzer Motorspor +31.979s
Pole : Ischer, 1m32.808s
Fastest lap: Ischer, 1m33.299s
Championship standings
1 Francot 134 2 Ischer 108 3 Sauter 86 4 Michl 66 5 Jakobsen 65 6 Egozi 50 7 Taylor 43 8 Mikes 33 9 Safranek 30 10 Bhirombhakdi 24