Strauven romps to Spanish F4 Winter Championship pole at Navarra

Photo: Spanish Winter Championship

Campos Racing’s Thomas Strauven romped to pole for the opening Spanish Formula 4 Winter Championship race at Navarra.

Strauven came to the fore in the first qualifying session on Saturday morning after being fourth fastest in free practice on Friday.

There were two sessions, and in the first a wet track meant a slow pace was set. Drivex School’s Christopher Feghali topped the times with a 2m00.536s, pipping Campos’s Jan Przyrowski by 0.091 seconds.

MP Motorsport’s Ean Eyckmans and Rene Lammers were both more than 0.26s behind in third and fourth, and their team-mate Yani Stevenheydens was the only other driver within half a second of the pace. Strauven was ninth fastest, 1.161s slower than Feghali.

The track was still wet for FP2 but laptimes were considerably quicker. Feghali improved to 1m45.978s to remain on top, this time by an even smaller margin of 0.082s.

Przyrowski was again his closest rival, with a 0.004s advantage over Campos’s Vivek Kanthan in third. Strauven was 0.361s back in fourth, and six other drivers were within a second of the pace.

Switching from Cram Motorsport to Global Racing Service for this weekend is Alexandar Bogunovic. The Slovenian teenager was fifth in the FIA Motorsport Games’ junior karting event, sixth in the Trofeo delle Industrie’s OK Junior class and seventh in the FIA Karting Academy Trophy in 2022, but lacked strong results when he stepped up to senior karting in 2023. He finished outside of the top 20 in all three races on his first F4 appearance last time out at Algarve.

Bogunovic was one of 11 drivers who spent time at the top in qualifying, starting with TC Racing’s Santino Panetta. Tecnicar Motorsport’s Sacha Van’t Pad Bosch was next to hold provisional pole, then he and Bogunovic traded fastest laps.

Feghali was next to lead the way, then Eyckmans was first to break the two-minute barrier. Strauven went 0.4s faster eight minutes in, and Feghali moved back ahead before team-mate Filippo Fiorentino brought the pace down into the 1m58s.

Eyckmans was back on top with a 1m57.452s at the session’s halfway mark, and soon he, Kanthan, Przyrowski and Strauven were trading fastest laps as a drier line emerged.

They were lapping in the 1m52s by the end, and after the chequered flag Strauven – who already held top spot – managed to find even more pace to set a 1m51.647s and secure pole by a sizeable 0.437s.

Przyrowski qualified second, and close to 0.7s behind were Feghali and MP’s Niklas Schaufler. Kanthan and Eyckmans were 0.8s slower than Strauven, and 1.636s covered the top 10. Bogunovic ended up down in 26th, 4.465s off the pace.

Qualifying results