Monteiro grows Spanish F4 WC lead with another Jarama victory

Photo: Spanish Winter Championship

Campos Racing’s Noah Monteiro extended his Spanish Formula 4 Winter Championship lead on Sunday at Jarama with pole and a victory.

Qualifying took place in the morning, and MP Motorsport’s Rocco Coronel was first to top the timesheet. G4 Racing’s Philippe Armand Karras brought the laptime to beat down to a more representative pace, before Coronel reclaimed first place with a 1m32.138s. However he would not improve on that, and in the last four minutes dropped down to 12th.

Ty Fisher was first to beat him, by 0.019 seconds, then Campos team-mate Vivek Kanthan went quickest by 0.047s. Monteiro was just behind and outpaced him by 0.057s, then both improved on their next laps.

Kanthan crossed the line in 1m31.844s, and a second later Monteiro posted a 1m31.646s. Andrej Petrovic was third fastest, 0.382s off pole and 0.009s ahead of Tecnicar Motorsport team-mate Nacho Tunon. MP’s Kasper Schormans was 0.401s behind in fifth, denying Campos’s Daniel Kelleher by 0.006s and Drivex School’s Nathan Tye by 0.01s. Fisher ended up eighth, 0.455s back, and MP’s Reno Francot was ninth fastest. Under 0.9s covered the top 24.

Four of the drivers in the top 24 were eliminated on lap one of the weekend’s third race, in a five-car incident that led to a lengthy red flag period. Before racing was stopped, Tunon had fallen to 17th and Francot had passed Fisher to be seventh.

The safety car led the field for two laps before the field was free to race again on lap four of 18, and there was action straight away. Tye got alongside Kelleher through the first two turns, and although he looked to have taken fifth they were later side-by-side once more and contact sent Kelleher spinning.

Monteiro had a quiet race thereon, setting the fastest lap but otherwise controlling his pace until the safety car returned on lap 11 due to two drivers outside of the top 10 colliding. Only two laps remained once green flags returned, and Monteiro locked up twice but held on to win by a second.

Tye passed Schormans on lap 10, but was far behind Petrovic until the second safety car period. When racing resumed, Kanthan defended from Petrovic who in turn was defending against Tye.

Coronel took sixth on lap nine, after Fisher had lunged past Francot at turn two but left room on the inside for Coronel to overtake both. Francot got past Fisher again and almost Coronel too before racing was interrupted, then on the final lap an incident led to Fisher crashing out and Coronel finishing 21st with a damaged car.

Campos’s Jacob Micallef profited from the chaos to steal sixth, ahead of Francot and Tecnicar’s Aleix Pinera.

Race results (18 laps)