Saudi Arabian F4’s first season begins with chaotic race in Kuwait

Photo: Parc Fermé TV

Saudi Arabian Formula 4’s inaugural season began on Friday in another country, as Kuwait Motor Town hosted a chaotic first race for the championship.

The sole practice session of the centrally-run series did not set a good impression, with huge gulfs in pace between the drivers of the 15 Meritus GP-run cars.

Hamda Al Qubaisi set a 2m04.510s and then a 2m04.339s, but both laps were deleted and so her sister Amna inherited top spot despite her personal best, a 2m05.366s, also being deleted. Amna’s earlier 2m06.696s lap meant she was fastest by 6.4 seconds over her brother Abdullah, with Abdulaziz Abuzenadah 9.269s behind in third and Hamda 14.572s back in fourth.

Juancho Brobio was 26.754s slower than Amna Al Qubaisi in fifth, and sixth-placed Suleiman Zanfari – the pacesetter in pre-season and pre-event testing – was 46.835s off the pace.

There was a clearer picture in qualifying, with Federico Al Rifai setting a 2m01.451s to take pole by 0.164s over Oscar Wurz. Zanfari was 0.22s behind in third, and the top eight were covered by 1.093s, but Abdullah Al Qubaisi, Laura Villars and Abuzenadah were all over 6.7s slower than Al Rifai.

Wurz took the lead immediately in race one, with Zanfari darting to the inside to also pass Al Rifai before turn one. Al Rifai’s efforts to hold on to third were helped by the safety car being summoned on lap one after Abuzenadah stopped on track.

Red flags waved on lap four, and 29 minutes later action resumed with a reset of the lapcount and a rolling restart. Zanfari led Al Rifai and Wurz at the restart after Wurz had a huge lock-up and went off at the final corner preceding it. Wurz gained back one spot down the pit straight, but later in the lap was rear-ended by Al Rifai and sent hurtling into the barriers.

That led to the safety car returning until lap four, and Zanfari controlled the restart. Although Al Rifai had the benefit of the tow down the straights, he was not able to keep with the leader and at the end of the nine-lap race was under intense pressure from Saqer Al-Maosherji.

Zanfari was declared winner by 3.561s over Al-Maosherji as Al Rifai was removed from the results, but post-race Al Rifai reappeared on the timing screens as occupying second place. When the timekeepers eventually published the official results, Al Rifai was 11th having been penalised 40s for causing a collision and ignoring black flags.

Hamda Al Qubaisi was a further 2.348s behind Al-Maosherji to take the final podium spot, and she had a handy gap to Kirill Kutskov in fourth.

Finishing eighth was Lucca Allen, who was present in a coaching capacity as well as racing. The 21-year-old Irishman spent one-and-a-half seasons in British F4 before moving to F4 South East Asia where he got to know Meritus. He took the 2019 title with 12 wins, then over the next two years made four outings in Super Formula Lights.

Race results (9 laps)