Photo: Chinese F4
Shimo Zhang wrapped up his title-winning Chinese Formula 4 season with three victories at Zhuhai.
He was outshone during qualifying, and in Q1 was one of many drivers to have laptimes deleted due to track limits abuse.
Yutsai Chan emerged with race one pole, setting a 1m39.816s to go fastest by 0.152 seconds over Yuhao Dai. Sicong Chen was a further 0.072s back, then 0.008s split Andrey Dubynin and Tiago Rodrigues in fourth and fifth.
They were both just within half a second of the pace, while Zhang trailed by 0.547s in sixth.
Q2 also featured a lot of deleted laptimes, and Chen picked up race three pole. His 1m39.762s lap put him just 0.083s ahead of Meng Cheng, with Dai and Rodrigues only 0.112s and 0.128s behind respectively. Zhang was fifth this time, 0.223s off pole, while Chan qualified sixth.
A rocket start to race one was made by Zhang, who was already challenging the top two by the opening corner. Dai had overtaken Chan off the line, and would later lose out to Zhang.
Chen then relegated Chan to fourth at the start of lap two, as Cheng crashed out at turn one. After their car was cleared and racing continued, Dai took the lead and Chan fought past Chen and then Zhang for second.
Following close behind was Chen, and Zhang ended up stuck in a pack race where he continued to lose time and places as Dai streaked away up front.
Chen got into second, guest driver Tiago Rodrigues was third and Zhang was 15s behind the winner in fourth. A 30s penalty cost Yan Yu fifth place.
Zhang made rapid progress up the order again in the reversed-grid race two, his car looking different since he was sporting a mismatching nose cone, and controlled the pace once up front.
Dai had to fight past Binghong Liu for fifth, and did not catch the group ahead despite disruption to the race caused by Patrick Tsang being spun off by Peng Yang during an attempted overtake.
Zhang ended up starting third for race three and immediately threaded between the two cars ahead of him to take the lead despite some defensive action from Dai.
A high-speed spin and off by Dubynin at turn four eliminated him and Rodrigues, and in the final quarter of the race technical trouble led to Dai stopping on track. The safety car was summoned, putting Chan on Zhang’s tail. He gapped him at the end of the race, and Ethan Ho completed the podium.
In race four, Zhang wasted little time getting from 10th into the top five, but then his divebomb move for fourth at turn four sent him off and he only narrowly avoided two drivers clashing ahead.
He dropped outside of the top 10 after rejoining, but a combination of clashes, other battles and his own racecraft brought him back up the order and Dai followed most of his progress.
Zhang was able to clear Chan and pull away, but a crash triggered a safety car period and after that Cheng spun on the pit straight just in front of Zhang and Dai.
Yu did clout Cheng’s slowed down car, and a few laps later Rodrigues crashed out at turn one. That brought Dai back into the top four, while Zhang led home Chan.
Results round-up
Race 1 (18 laps)
1 Yuhao Dai ONE Motorsports 32m13.673s
2 Sicong Chen Black Blade Racing +9.193s
3 Tiago Rodrigues Champ Pro Racing +14.510s
4 Shimo Zhang ACM Geeke Racing +15.329s
5 Yutsai Chan Champ Motorsport +16.230s
6 Andrey Dubynin Blackjack Racing +24.420s
7 Ethan Ho Team KRC +27.922s
8 Binghong Liu Black Blade Racing +29.036s
9 Heloise Goldberg Blackjack Racing +30.339s
10 Peng Yang Venom Motorsport +38.605s
Pole: Chan, 1m39.816s
Fastest lap: Dai, 1m40.385s
Race 2 (17 laps)
1 Zhang 31m16.890s
2 Dubynin +2.635s
3 Ho +3.760s
4 Chan +6.808s
5 Dai +7.497s
6 Liu +12.582s
7 Rodrigues +13.570s
8 Meng Cheng Black Blade Racing +21.614s
9 Chen +21.929s
10 Andy Law Champ Motorsport +36.228s
FL: Zhang, 1m39.941s
Race 3 (16 laps)
1 Zhang 32m30.748s
2 Chan +0.651s
3 Ho +1.019s
4 Yan Yu Venom Motorsport +1.455s
5 Liu +1.785s
6 Law +2.417s
7 Cheng +2.728s
8 Yang +2.937s
9 Patrick Tsang Champ Motorsport +3.344s
10 Viktor Turkin Asia Racing Team +3.810s
P: Chen, 1m39.762s
FL: Zhang, 1m40.373s
Race 4 (17 laps)
1 Zhang 33m20.780s
2 Chan +1.802s
3 Ho +2.434s
4 Dai +2.994s
5 Chen +4.865s
6 Dubynin +5.276s
7 Liu +8.340s
8 Law +9.689s
9 Goldberg +12.242s
10 Tsang +13.424s
FL: Dai, 1m39.671s
Championship standings
1 Zhang 424 2 Chan 291 3 Dai 254 4 Chen 197 5 Dubynin 170 6 Ho 156 7 Yuzhe Wang 85 8 Yu 75 9 Yi Wang 60 10 Liu 60