Photo: F4 Spain
The Spanish Formula 4 championship had a super close Saturday qualifying session at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit, with race one pole taken by just 0.002 seconds.
Rodin Carlin’s Noah Lisle topped the timesheet after five minutes with a 1m35.130s, putting him 0.071s ahead of fellow Australian and team-mate Alex Ninovic.
Lisle improved to 1m34.181s to keep himself on top and it became an Australian 1-2-3 as Griffin Peebles went third fastest.
Ho got within 0.095s of Lisle almost six minutes into the 20-minute session, then Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael and Campos Racing’s Matteo De Palo took the pace down into the 1m33s.
MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella was briefly fastest, then Ho moved to the top before practice pacesetter Anres Cardenas edged ahead by 0.007s with a 1m33.238s.
Nael slotted into third, 0.054s off the top, but then Rinicella set a 1m32.978s as the session approached its halfway point.
His comparatively big gap at the top was eradicated with seven minutes to go as Ho went fastest with a 1m32.771s. Four other drivers had lapped sub-1m33s, with De Palo in third ahead of Ninovic.
Deligny became Ho’s closest rival by getting within 0.004s of his pace, then Monlau Motorsport’s Ricardo Gracia came just 0.002s shy of matching Ho before the session was ended 18 seconds early by red flags after Hiyu Yamakoshi had come to a stop on track.
Points leader Nael completed a top spread by 0.009s, with Rinicella only 0.033s off pole in fifth and De Palo 0.051s behind in sixth. Remarkably the top 31 were covered by less than a second.
However, Gracia and Deligny later had their best times deleted, demoting them to sixth and eighth. Nael was promoted to second, but takes a three-place grid penalty in race one after an incident in practice.
Rinicella gets race two pole based on second-fastest laps, ahead of Nael and De Palo.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Christian Ho Campos Racing 1m32.771s
2 Theophile Nael Sainteloc Racing +0.009s
3 Valerio Rinicella MP Motorsport +0.033s
4 Matteo De Palo Campos Racing +0.051s
5 Alex Ninovic Carlin +0.109s
6 Ricardo Gracia Monlau Motorsport +0.111s
7 Alexander Abkhazava Drivex School +0.185s
8 Enzo Deligny Campos Racing +0.213s
9 Andres Cardenas Campos Racing +0.237s
10 Keanu Al Azhari MP Motorsport +0.272s
Race 2 grid
1 Rinicella 1m32.847s
2 Nael +0.125s
3 De Palo +0.138s
4 Cardenas +0.166s
5 Ho +0.174s
6 Deligny +0.177s
7 Gracia +0.215s
8 Ninovic +0.253s
9 Al Azhari +0.279s
10 Pedro Clerot MP Motorsport +0.346s