Juan Cota claims home gold for Spain in Motorsport Games F4

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Juan Cota held off Andres Cardenas to clinch a home gold medal for Spain in the Motorsport Games Formula 4 event at Valencia.

Cota, who scored a Spanish F4 hat-trick at the Ricardo Tormo circuit last month, made a good getaway from pole position to in his MP Motorsport car make a clear gap to Drivex-run Peruvian Cardenas. While Spanish F4 squads were entrusted with fielding their Tatuus F4-T421 cars – in a change to the single-team model of previous editions – drivers were not allowed to work with their usual teams.

By the end of lap two, Cardenas had closed right up to Cota and made a move down the inside of Turn 2 on the next lap. Cota managed to stay ahead, and was afforded a brief breather by a safety car intervention after the Czech Republic’s Max Karhan had run into the back of Greek entrant Philippe Karras, sending both into retirement.

Austria’s Oscar Wurz had already retired to the pits after taking suspension-breaking contact from Japan’s Tosei Moriyama at the final corner of lap one.

After the restart, Cardenas remained close to Cota for several laps, but the Madrid-born driver eventually eased away to win by 1.335 seconds.

Yevan David made it a three-car battle for much of the race in his Tecnicar-operated Sri Lanka entry, only to receive two track limits penalties of five and 10 seconds to demote him from bronze medal position and down to 11th.

Picking up bronze was British driver Reza Seewooruthun, who had been the leading driver coming from outside Spanish F4, in a Campos Racing car.

Ariel Elkin was fourth for Israel ahead of Moriyama, while Chester Kieffer recovered to sixth from 17th after the Luxembourg racer was one of five drivers disqualified for track limits offences in the qualification race.

Race results