Red Bull junior Lindblad claims F4 pole in chaotic Macau qualifying

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Theodore Racing’s Arvid Lindblad topped qualifying for Formula 4 South East Asia’s non-championship round in Macau.

The start of the half-hour session was delayed by 15 minutes due to a slippery surface in the final sector caused by an incident from when another series was on track.

R-ace GP’s Hadrien David was first to top the times since he led the way out of the pits, with a 2m56.226s outlap. His first proper lap was a 2m29.396s, putting him 0.064 seconds ahead of team-mate Raphael Narac and 3.303s ahead of AGI Sport’s Jack Beeton in third place.

He improved to 2m27.136s on his next lap, growing his advantage over Narac to 0.516s, with Lindblad slotting into third with a lap 0.918s slower than David’s while team-mate Freddie Slater was 1.191s off the pace in fourth.

David continued to get faster, setting a 2m26.617s laptime 10-and-a-half minutes into the session. But this time it was not enough to keep him on top as Lindblad went fastest by 0.839s. Charles Leong, also driving for the Prema-run Theodore team, went third fastest and Slater stuck in traffic in sixth place.

Qualifying was red flagged at the 12-minute mark as Pinnacle Motorsport’s Kai Daryanani oversteered into the Lisboa barriers. There was a five-minute stoppage and when the action got going again Slater found himself once more mired in traffic due to his position in the pitlane.

He did not lose out though since none of the frontrunners improved before red flags waved again due to Pinnacle Motorsport’s Martinius Stenshorne crashing in the final sector and breaking his front-right wheel. Pinnacle had announced a tie-up with B-MAX Racing ahead of the event, but after practice told Formula Scout that it was actually now running its cars independently of the Japanese team.

There was a break of six minutes before qualifying resumed with just under 13 minutes left on the clock, and Asia Racing Team’s Enzo Yeh went straight off at Lisboa but avoided the barriers and took the escape road.

However once again the first flying laps following a restart were interrupted by red flags waving as with just under nine minutes to go Narac had a heavy impact in sector three that broke off his front wing then sent his car briefly upwards as it planted itself into the barriers.

This time there was a 13-minute stoppage, with the lengthy recovery proccess extended by the recovery vehicles then having to get back into place ready to be used again.

David returned to first place just under four minutes to go, setting a 2m25.442s despite almost crashing at Fisherman’s Bend. Moments later Slater went 0.019s faster than him, while Lindblad improved to be 0.26s off the new benchmark. Beeton went fourth fastest, and Leong improved but dropped to fifth.

With 90 seconds left on the clock David posted a 1m25.131s, but Slater then set a 1m24.938s and Lindblad went 0.37s faster than that while Leong returned to the top four.

David moved up to second, 0.315s off Lindblad, after the chequered flag but then Slater knocked him back down to third by going 0.041s faster than him.

Lindblad had even more pace in hand, taking pole by 0.549s with his final lap, an team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri jumped up to fifth.

Qualifying results