Home News Nael takes his and Sainteloc Racing’s first Spanish F4 win at Aragon

Nael takes his and Sainteloc Racing’s first Spanish F4 win at Aragon

by Peter Allen

Photo: Sainteloc/Dutch Photo Agency

Theophile Nael scored his and Sainteloc Racing’s first Spanish Formula 4 win in the third and final race of the weekend at Motorland Aragon.

From third on the grid, Nael took second from Valerio Rinicella at the first corner and then overtook polesitter Matteo De Palo into the turn 8/9 chicane.

Heading onto lap two, Nael was still having to defend from the two drivers he had just passed, before the safety car was deployed to retrieve the stranded car of Fernando Barrichello.

Nael got a good restart and was already 0.6 seconds ahead at the start-finish line.

Further back, Noah Stromsted repassed championship leader Pedro Clerot, having lost the place while trying to attack Enzo Deligny for fourth.

Stromsted’s Campos Racing team-mate and race two winner Christian Ho then tried to make a move on Clerot, but soon crawled to a halt with broken left-rear suspension, triggering another safety car.

Just eight minutes remained when racing resumed and Nael soon started to pull away while De Palo fell into the clutches of Deligny, who had gone around the outside of Rinicella to claim third in the first corner of the restart.

With two minutes to go, Red Bull junior Deligny made a late dive down the inside of team-mate De Palo to seal a fine weekend with two second-places to add to his race one win.

There was drama behind in the fight behind the podium places. Clerot divebombed both Stromsted and Rincicella at the hairpin, forcing his MP Motorsport team-mate way off track and down to ninth.

Stromsted survived to take fourth with Keanu Al Azhari nipping through to fifth. Rinicella recovered back ahead of Ricardo Gracia and Jeronimo Berrio to finish just three tenths of a second behind Clerot.

Race result (15 laps)
Pos Driver Team Gap
1 Theophile Nael Sainteloc Racing 33m51.639s
2 Enzo Deligny Campos Racing +2.234s
3 Matteo De Palo Campos Racing +3.348s
4 Noah Stromsted Campos Racing +4.993s
5 Keanu Al Azhari MP Motorsport +6.917s
6 Pedro Clerot MP Motorsport +8.581s
7 Valerio Rinicella MP Motorsport +8.897s
8 Jeronimo Berrio MP Motorsport +9.366s
9 Ricardo Gracia Monlau Motorsport +10.452s
10 Alvise Rodella MP Motorsport +13.307s
11 Alex Ninovic Carlin +14.761s
12 Alexander Abkhazava Drivex School +17.281s
13 Luciano Morano Saineloc Racing +17.949s
14 Jesse Carrasquedo Jr Campos Racing +18.331s
15 Griffin Peebles Tecnicar Motorsport +19.491s
16 Andres Cardenas Campos Racing +19.563s
17 Eric Gene Tecnicar Motorsport +24.628s
18 Daniel Nogales Drivex School +24.698s
19 Carl Bennett GRS +25.387s
20 Flavio Olivieri Cram Motorsport +25.625s
21 George Zhuravskiy Drivex School +25.931s
22 Theodor Jensen Sainteloc Racing +28.149s
23 Federico Al Rifai Carlin +39.184s
24 Alessandro Silvaggi Cram Motorsport +1m49.422s
25 Maxi Restrepo Drivex School +1m50.203s
26 Lin Hodenius Monlau Motorsport +1 lap
27 Pablo Sarrazin Monlau Motorsport +4 laps
Ret Noah Lisle Carlin
Ret Hiyu Yamakoshi Tecnicar Motorsport
Ret Christian Ho Campos Racing
Ret Juan Cota Drivex School
Ret Fernando Barrichello Monlau Motorsport
Pole: De Palo, 1m59.508s   Fastest lap: Nael, 2m00.122s

Championship standings
1 Clerot 82   2 Nael 74   3 Ho 73   4 Deligny 70   5 De Palo 63   6 Stromsted 51   7 Rinicella 39   8 Al-Azhari 39   9 Berrio 20   10 Lisle 16