Van Langendonck grows huge FWinter Series lead with Valencia win

Photo: Gedlich Racing

Dries Van Langendonck won race one of Formula Winter Series’ third round at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit.

There were new faces on the grid, and Eric Poulsen replaced Victor Snebjoern Poulsen (of no relation) at AS Motorsport. Caitlyn McDaniel and Jensen Burnett joined Mathilda Racing’s line-up, with Mathilda Paatz absent due to F1 Academy testing.

Two days of pre-event testing preceded the event getting underway, and US Racing’s Ary Bansal set a 1m34.511s to the top the times. He led team-mate Olexandar Savinkov by 0.174 seconds, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rocco Coronel by 0.236s and Rodin Motorsport’s Van Langendonck by 0.311s. Alexander Ruta (VAR), Chiara Battig (Campos Racing) and Oscar Repetto (Cram Motorsport) also lapped sub-1m35s.

An announcement was put out at the end of Friday, stating “Circuit Ricardo has cancelled all activities scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday 14 February, due to a weather alert for strong winds”. That led to a revised schedule and qualifying kicking off a compressed Sunday timetable with races being shortened.

The blustery conditions continued, and Van Langendonck topped qualifying to claim race one. His late 1m34.817s lap put him on top by 0.154s. Ruta was second, and Burnett pipped US’s Ludovico Busso to third by 0.001s as both trailed the poleman by 0.27s.

VAR’s Pedro Lima, Thomas Bearman and Coronel were split by 0.073s in the next three positions, and Bansal was 0.492s off the pace in eighth. A second covered the top 18.

Burnett’s strong qualifying result was undone at the start of race one as he stalled, and Coronel was in second by turn one. He tried a diving move on Van Langendonck at turn six, then the safety car was called due to Campos’s Zoe Florescu Potolea crashing out. Cram’s Max Kammerlander and Andre Rodriguez also retired after heading to the pits.

Bearman had got into fourth ahead of Busso, Lima and Rodin’s Alfie Slater before racing was neutralised, and on the lap four restart Ruta had to defend third place against Bearman into turn one. At the next corner there was room for Bearman to aim for Ruta’s inside, and his team-mate went off slightly but kept ahead through turn four as the top two pulled away.

Busso sought to pass Bearman around the outside at turn seven, then at turn 10 they collided. While Busso only dropped to ninth, behind Bansal, Slater, US’s Noah Killion and Rodin’s Ethan Lennon, Bearman fell to 17th.

Van Langendonck ended lap five with a 1.1s lead, and grew it to 1.7s before Coronel closed back in late on despite pressure from Ruta.

Slater had a queue of cars behind him in the race’s second half, and was attacked by Killion on the penultimate lap. That bunched up the pack behind and Busso slipped past Lennon. He then overtook Killion too, and when Lima went off at turn one on the last lap it looked like Bansal could start a fight for fourth too.

Positions were maintained, and Bearman only recovered to 15th after getting stuck behind Battig for many laps. Burnett made his way up to 21st, and had a clash with Jenzer Motorsport’s Markas Silkunas on his way up the order.

Race results (13 laps)