Strauven victorious again in Spanish F4 as temperatures rise in Portugal

Photo: Spanish F4

Thomas Strauven extended his Spanish Formula 4 points lead with victory in the second race at Algarve.

Campos Racing’s Jan Przyrowski started very slowly from second, and team-mate Noah Monteiro directly behind did not get going at all until everyone had gone past.

Strauven carried a big lead into turn one, ahead of MP Motorsport’s Ean Eyckmans, Niklas Schaufler and Rene Lammers. Schaufler lost out to his team-mate and Przyrowski before the end of lap one, then to Drivex School’s Christopher Feghali at turn one on lap two.

The safety car came out soon after that due to an incident involving Campos’s Vivek Kanthan at turn three that then led to him parking up off-track before turn five with a broken front-right wheel.

Strauven made an early return to racing speeds on the lap five restart and it was briefly three-wide for third behind him. Feghali went off at turn one and looked to have lost a place, but with suprerior speed stayed ahead of Schaufler at turn two.

The top two positions were decided at this point, but as the track temperatures rose so did the intensity of the fights behind. Strauven’s title rival Lammers held third, ahead of Przyrowski, Feghali, Schaufler, Tecnicar Motorsport’s Andrej Petrovic, MP’s Juan Cota and Hudson Schwartz, TC Racing’s Alfio Spina and Rodin Motorsport’s Nathan Tye.

On lap seven the safety car returned, and for the lap 10 restart Strauven repeated his previous strategy. With the prolonged slipstream effect, Przyrowski was able to start the lap alongside Lammers, and went to his inside at turn one.

Lammers bounced over the kerbs and lost several places, but so did Przyrowski as Feghali and Schaufler slipped past him. Petrovic demoted Lammers to seventh at turn three, then he was side-by-side with Cota mid-lap but managed to stay ahead.

MP’s Reno Francot got involved, passing Tye for 10th, and when Tye tried to get back past at turn four a lap later it set up a three-wide squabbled into the turn five hairpin with Drivex’s Gino Trappa. Tye got back ahead, as Petrovic’s attempts to pass Przyrowski brought Lammers into another a three-wide fight at turn 10.

Petrovic was ahead into turn 14, and Lammers remained on the outside as he tried overtaking Przyrowski. As they began lap 12 there were now six cars fighting for position, and Lammers was back ahead of Petrovic. Tye passed Przyrowski, Cota and Spina at turn three, with Przyrowski plummeting to 12th.

It went wrong for Schwartz in the pack fight as he fell even further to 31st, and and when Petrovic and Tye made contact after going wheel-to-wheel through turns seven and eight it dropped Petrovic to eighth behind Spina.

Monteiro charged back up the order to 11th, a position claimed by a big lunge on Francot, and Przyrowski finished 16th.

There are several incidents, and the first safety car restart, which are being investigated so the points positions could change.

Race results (14 laps)