Strauven continues Spanish F4 winning streak at Paul Ricard

Photo: Campos Racing

Thomas Strauven resisted Ean Eyckmans to continue his Spanish Formula 4 winning streak in race one at Paul Ricard.

It was Strauven’s Campos Racing team-mate Jan Przyrowski who claimed pole position in qualifying by almost a quarter of a second over the championship leader, but that effort went to waste when the Pole was slow away went the lights went out at the start of the race.

Strauven took the lead ahead of Eyckmans and had to defend from his fellow Belgian as they charged down the Mistral straight for the first time.

The safety car was deployed on lap two to retrieve the damaged car of Alexander Jacoby, and at the restart Nathan Tye snatched third from Przyrowski. Later in the lap, Przyrowski fought back into the final corner and forced Tye wide, but the Rodin Motorsport driver managed to hold on into Turn 1. A lap later though, Przyrowski grabbed the place back around the outside.

That battle allowed Strauven and Eyckmans to escape out front. They remained separated by just tenths of a second until the last few laps, in which Strauven grew the gap to 1.2 seconds to secure his fourth win in a row. Eyckmans finished second to his compatriot for the third time in those four races.

Przyrowski shook off Tye as he completed the podium. Another championship contender, Rene Lammers, also slipped backwards at the start from fifth to seventh at the start, but he recovered those places after the restart to beat Christopher Feghali and Reno Francot.

Race results (14 laps)