Przyrowski steals another Spanish F4 pole at final moment

Photo: Spanish F4

Campos Racing’s Jan Przyrowski claimed pole for Spanish Formula 4’s third race at Paul Ricard at the last moment of qualifying.

It was quiet at first in the 20-minute session, and Drivex School’s Stepan Suslov led the way with a 2m15.54s lap after six minutes.

His team-mate Filippo Fiorentino moved to the top with his next lap, and only five drivers had laptimes next to their name while the others waited in the pits.

The outlaps for everyone else came as the second qualifying session approached its halfway point, and before there was too much traffic Fiorentino improved to 2m07.91s at the top.

He was down in sixth shortly after, as Campos’s Matus Ryba set a 2m07.342s to lead Miguel Costa by 0.079 seconds and other team-mate Vivek Kanthan by 0.286s.

Fiorentio got back into the top three, and was 0.089s off Ryba, with his next effort but when the first flying laps came in from the championship frontrunners he was demoted back to fifth.

MP Motorsport’s Ean Eyckmans posted a 2m06.75s with eight minutes to go, going 0.592s clear of Ryba as TC Racing’s Alfio Spina rose to third.

Niklas Schaufler and Hudson Schwartz soon got within half a second of their pace-setting team-mate, then Fiorentino slasged the gap at the top to 0.368s with six minutes remaining.

Spina found more pace too, getting within 0.106s of the provisional pole time, only for MP’s Reno Francot to then lower the benchmark laptime to 2m06.636s.

Eyckmans set a 2m06.121s straight after, which Shwartz got within 0.388s off with five minutes to go. Przyrowski, in his slipstream, went 0.003s faster then points-leading team-mate Thomas Strauven rose from 13th to second by getting within 0.245s of Eyckmans.

Schaufler improved to get back into the top five, but a minute later was out of it as Eyckmans improved again to 2m05.96s. Francot was 0.29s behind in third, with a 0.406s gap to Strauven then Przyrowski and Schwartz.

Strauven lapped 0.08s shy of Eyckmans with just over two minutes remaining, with Lammers and Przyrwoski trailing by 0.143s and 0.227s in third and fourth. Lots of other drivers were improving, with Eyckamns proving to be the exception.

Just before the clock hit zero, Strauven posted a 2m05.912s to go fastest by 0.048s. Lammers got even closer to pole, now 0.125s behind in third, and Przyrowski remained fourth.

After the chequered flag, a 2m05.854s from Przyrowski earned him his fourth successive pole by 0.058s, and noboby else in the top eight set a personal best on their final tour of the circuit.

Eyckmans, Lammers and Francot completed the top five, ahead of Kanthan, Campos’s Noah Monteiro, Costa and Rodin Motorsport’s late improver Nathan Tye.

Qualifying results