The F4 Spanish Championship kicked off its 10th season with intense on-track competition among three familiar faces of the series.
With 36 cars on the grid and a field full of talent, the recently crowned E4 Spanish Winter Champion, Thomas Strauven, struck first by taking victory in Saturday’s race.
In that race, rookie Noah Monteiro started from Pole Position, although a post-race penalty deprived him of the third-place finish he had earned on track.
The win was fiercely contested between Strauven and Lammers from start to finish, with constant attacks and defenses, but in the end, it was the Belgian who claimed the glory, while Hudson Schwartz completed the season’s first podium.
Nathan Tye, Vivek Kanthan, Juan Cota — after a great recovery from the back of the grid — Francisco Monarca, Andrej Petrovic, and Niklas Schaufler rounded out the points-paying positions in the weekend’s opening race.
On Sunday, Strauven suffered a major setback in the sprint race while battling among the front runners. A contact with Andrej Petrovic and a subsequent puncture ended his chances.
With the Belgian out of contention, the fight for victory came down to René Lammers, Jan Przyrowski, and rookie Ean Eyckmans. This time, the Dutchman crossed the line in first, but a post-race 5-second penalty for track limits dropped him to sixth place, handing the win to the Polish driver from Griffin Core by Campos Racing. Eyckmans ended up second, with Hudson Schwartz once again finishing third.
The final race was again marked by track limits violations and various penalties that altered the final results.
On track, a major crash at the start significantly shortened the race, one in which René Lammers initially took the win. However, another post-race penalty gave the victory — his second of the weekend — to Jan Przyrowski. Behind them, Thomas Strauven returned to the podium to redeem himself after the morning’s events, managing to retain the championship lead.
Thus, Belgian driver Thomas Strauven leaves Motorland Aragón as the first championship leader of the year, holding a narrow two-point lead (45 pts) over Jan Przyrowski (43 pts) and René Lammers (42 pts).
MP Motorsport leads the teams’ standings (54 pts), ahead of Griffin Core by Campos (43 pts) and KCL by MP Motorsport (41 pts).
As for the rookies, Portuguese driver Noah Monteiro — son of former F1 driver Tiago Monteiro — leads the rookie classification after the three races in Alcañiz, during which he even claimed a pole position in his championship debut.
