Photo: Australian F4
AGI Sport’s James Piszcyk made it nine wins out of nine in Australian Formula 4 this season with a triple victory at Sydney Motorsport Park.
There were three practice sessions over Thursday and Friday, and James Piszcyk set a 1m28.993s in FP1 to be fastest by a huge 1.3115 seconds over team-mate Nicolas Stati. Piszcyk topped FP2 with a slower pace, and Stati came 0.1s short of matching his personal best when he led FP3.
Piszcyk’s pace advantage continued into qualifying on Saturday, setting a 1m29.5597s to top Q1 by 0.947s over Stati and 1.9691s over other team-mate Seth Gilmore, then in Q2 improving to 1m29.3228s to be fastest by 0.9669s over Stati. This time Jam Motorsport’s Sebastien Amadio was third fastest, 1.6981s slower than Piszyck.
Formula Race Academy’s Lawrence Katsidis and Tim Boydle exceeded the 110% qualifying time in both qualifying sessions, meaning permission to race was required.
Piszcyk turned the first of his poles into a comfortable 5.4547-second victory over Stati in race one, with Gilmore fading to a very distant fifth behind Amadio and AGI’s Imogen Radburn.
Those results set the race two grid, and the top five held their positions throughout. Piszcyk was almost a second per lap faster than closest rival Stati, winning by 15.8738s. A further 10s back was Amadio, who had a 1.5s gap to Radburn.
It was a similar story in race three, with Piszcyk taking 18 laps to put 17.1787s between himself and Stati. Radburn made the podium but was half a minute behind the winner.
There are set to be two more rounds this season, but only one of them has a date and location determined. If the fifth round does not go ahead, then Piszcyk has provisionally already won the title with his current perfect points tally.
Results round-up
Race 1 (15 laps)
1 James Piszcyk AGI Sport 26m37.8981s
2 Nicolas Stati AGI Sport +5.4547s
3 Sebastien Amadio Jam Motorsport +13.5543s
4 Imogen Radburn AGI Sport +21.6870s
5 Seth Gilmore AGI Sport +31.6667s
6 Nathan Gotch Formula Race Academy +42.3166s
7 Nicholas Filipetto Formula Race Academy +45.9873s
8 Lawrence Katsidis Formula Race Academy +1m22.4467s
9 Tim Boydle Formula Race Academy +1m25.3132s
Ret Mark Wilson Formula Race Academy
Pole: Piszyck, 1m29.5597s
Fastest lap: Piszyck, 1m30.6019s
Race 2 (16 laps)
1 Piszcyk 26m57.1063s
2 Stati +15.8738s
3 Amadio +26.6297s
4 Radburn +28.1371s
5 Gilmore +36.0948s
6 Gotch +56.1466s
7 Filipetto +59.5770s
8 John Paul Drake Jam Motorsport +1m24.5490s
9 Boydle +1 lap
10 Wilson +1 lap
FL: Piszcyk, 1m30.2809s
Race 3 (18 laps)
1 Piszcyk 27m20.2988s
2 Stati +17.1787s
3 Radburn +30.0271s
4 Amadio +37.8997s
5 Gilmore +45.2353s
6 Gotch +1m10.8664s
7 Filipetto +1m13.4430s
8 Drake +1m30.1398s
9 Wilson +1 lap
10 Katsidis +1 lap
P: Piszcyk, 1m29.3228s
FL: Piszcyk, 1m30.1767s
Championship standings
1 Piszcyk 225 2 Stati 145 3 Amadio 112 4 Gilmore 100 5 Blake Purdie 97 6 Radburn 65 7 Gotch 46 8 Drake 33 9 Filipetto 26 10 Mark Rosser 16