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Home Formula 4FWinter Series McLaughlin starts FWinter Series testing on top, Campos reveals line-up

McLaughlin starts FWinter Series testing on top, Campos reveals line-up

by Ida Wood

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Fionn McLaughlin was quickest on the opening day of Formula Winter Series pre-event testing at Algarve, as the field for the season ahead fully formed.

Before testing began, Campos Racing revealed its all-female line-up of Chloe Chambers, Rafaela Ferreira and Alisha Palmowski. The trio are all using the series as a warm-up for the female-only F1 Academy, where they will also be racing for Campos.

Palmowski and Ferreira will compete this weekend, then Chambers will replace Ferreira for FWinter Series round two at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit. In round three at Motorland Aragon, Chambers will be partnered by Ferreira.

Chambers came 16th in the all-female W Series for Formula Regional cars back in 2022, was a FRegional Oceania race-winner in 2023 and was sixth in F1 Academy with Campos last year. Ferreira took three wins en route to fourth in the 2024 Brazilian F4 standings, and Palmowski was a three-time winner and championship runner-up in GB4 last year.

AKM Motorsport will enter Georgi Zhuravskiy and Joanne Ciconte into FWinter Series. Zhuravskiy was 22nd in the FRegional-based Eurocup-3 series in 2024, and Ciconte made appearances in Australian and Spanish F4.

Andrea Dupe, Nordic 4 race-winner Sebastian Bach and the French F4-experienced Mathilda Paatz will race for AS Motorsport, and Dupe has also been signed for Italian F4.

The 16-year-old Dupe was 19th in the South Garda Winter Cup, 25th in the CIK-FIA World championship and 26th in the Champions of the Future series when racing on OK karts.

Hitech GP’s McLaughlin topped all three test sessions on Thursday, setting a 1m47.938s in the opening 55-minute session to lead team-mate Leo Robinson by 0.071 seconds and US Racing’s Maxim Rehm by 0.956s. Only seven laptimes in total were deleted due to track limits abuse, but that jumped up to over 70 in session two.

The pace was lowered to 1m45.847s, with other team-mate Thomas Bearman and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maximilian Popov trailing McLaughlin by 0.3s. US’s Gabriel Gomez, Robinson and US’s Edu Robinson were the only other drivers with a second of the pace.

Everyone set their personal best laps in session three, and a 1m45.513s from McLaughlin put him just 0.054s ahead of Bearman as little over a second covered the top 13. Paatz joined the action too after missing the first two sessions, as over 70 laptimes were deleted again.

Several of Hitech’ squads across junior single-seaters this year, including in FWinter Series, will be entered as ‘Hitech Toyota Gazoo Racing’ to reflect a new alliance with Toyota focused on driver development.

Day one results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Fionn McLaughlin Hitech GP 1m45.513s 45
2 Thomas Bearman Hitech GP 1m45.567s +0.054s 44
3 Gabriel Gomez US Racing 1m45.800s +0.287s 36
4 Leo Robinson Hitech GP 1m45.813s +0.300s 43
5 Kabir Aburag US Racing 1m45.964s +0.451s 45
6 Maximilian Popov Van Amersfoort Racing 1m46.224s +0.711s 50
7 Sebastian Bach AS Motorsport 1m46.226s +0.713s 47
8 Edu Robinson US Racing 1m46.313s +0.800s 39
9 Enea Frey Jenzer Motorsport 1m46.361s +0.848s 46
10 Luka Sammalisto US Racing 1m46.377s +0.864s 47
11 Maxim Rehm US Racing 1m46.394s +0.881s 44
12 Bart Harrison Jenzer Motorsport 1m46.516s +1.003s 46
13 Nina Gademan Hitech GP 1m46.517s +1.004s 39
14 Andrea Dupe AS Motorsport 1m46.613s +1.100s 46
15 Alisha Palmowski Campos Racing 1m46.866s +1.353s 47
16 Artem Severeiukhin Jenzer Motorsport 1m46.876s +1.363s 40
17 Alexander Ruta Cram Motorsport 1m46.958s +1.445s 52
18 Andrija Kostic US Racing 1m47.007s +1.494s 48
19 Dante Vinci Van Amersfoort Racing 1m47.097s +1.584s 43
20 Joanne Ciconte AKM Motorsport 1m47.222s +1.709s 38
21 Payton Westcott Van Amersfoort Racing 1m47.282s +1.769s 54
22 Rafaela Ferreira Campos Racing 1m47.497s +1.983s 48
23 Simon Schranz Renauer Motorsport 1m47.669s +2.156s 56
24 Georgi Zhuravskiy AKM Motorsport 1m47.788s +2.275s 38
25 Alba Hurup Larsen Jenzer Motorsport 1m47.901s +2.388s 48
26 Teo Borenstein Maffi Racing 1m47.958s +2.445s 48
27 Kirill Kutskov Maffi Racing 1m48.052s +2.539s 36
28 Mathilda Paatz AS Motorsport 1m48.666s +3.153s 19
29 Kornelia Olkucka Maffi Racing 1m49.454s +3.941s 48
30 Aiva Anagnostiadis Cram Motorsport 1m49.823s +4.310s 50