Spanish F4 champ Strauven on top again in unusual day at Barcelona

Photo: Spanish Winter Championship

Spanish Formula 4 champion Thomas Strauven was once again the driver to beat in an unconventional day of track action at Barcelona.

A technical issue prevented qualifying from taking place, meaning laptimes from practice set race one’s grid.

Strauven earned pole by 0.142 seconds over Campos Racing team-mate Jan Przyrowski, with MP Motorsport’s Reno Francot 0.424s behind in third. Miguel Costa (Campos) and Ean Eyckmans (MP) were fourth and fifth, as a second covered the top 17.

Outside of that group were MP’s Niklas Schaufler and Rene Lammers, down in 25th and 28th, with the latter leading Eyckmans and Przyrowski in the battle to be championship runner-up.

Przyrowski tucked in behind Strauven at the start, Eyckmans overtook Costa then swept to the inside in defence and Lammers went to the outside at turn one to clear Costa too. Francot emerged from the opening chicane in third.

There was lots of squabbling through the rest of lap one. Eyckmans got back past Francot, Lammers fell to 28th and Campos’s Matus Ryba made it into sixth ahead of Christopher Feghali (Drivex School), Noah Monteiro (Campos), Nathan Tye (Rodin Motorsport) and Andrej Petrovic (Tecnicar Motorsport).

Francot sat fourth and on lap two wiggled a bit approaching turn 10. Costa pounced on his uncertainty by diving down the inside, with Feghali doing the same to Ryba. Both completed their moves by leaving no room for their rival exiting the corner, then at turn 13 Feghali went down Francot’s inside and Ryba skated off.

Francot entered the pits rather than the last corner, and Ryba fell to 10th. When he reached turn one he defended heavily, but his tight inside line cost him places to MP’s Rocco Coronel and G4 Racing’s Jean Paul Karras.

While Strauven kept Przyrowski out of reach and Eyckmans ran in a lonely third, the race took a twist on lap seven as several drivers pitted for new tyres. More and more did the same over the next laps, while Francot headed back out.

The logic for drivers outside of the points-providing top 10 was that with race one’s fastest laps setting race two’s grid, they could earn themselves a better starting spot by using new rubber early while consigning themselves to the bottom half of race one’s finishing order.

It added a challenge for the drivers up front as the pitters returned to track as traffic to lap, and Strauven navigated them expertly to grow his lead from one to 7.33 seconds.

Eyckmans held off Costa, and further back were Monteiro, Tye and MP’s Hudson Schwartz.

An off for Feghali meant he came home eighth, and unusually Karras pitted from ninth so his brother Philippe Armand inherited the position.

MP’s Juan Cota completed the top 10, and Francot scored by taking the fastest lap in 34th and last place as he took the chequered flag five laps down. Coronel finished 22nd on his single-seater debut after pitting, and Lammers was 29th.

Race results (19 laps)