Photo: F4 Spain

The grid is growing for Spanish Formula 4’s main and winter championships, the latter of which starts next month.

G4 Racing has announced the Karras brothers, Jean Paul and Philippe Armand, will be in its line-up for both seasons after running the pair in 2025.

They started their single-seater careers in F4 Central European Zone two years ago, with two fourth places putting Philippe Armand 16th in the standings. He then represented Greece in the Motorsport Games’ F4 event, qualifying seventh, finishing 12th in the qualification race then retiring from the main race.

Sainteloc Racing signed the brothers for the 2025 Spanish F4 Winter Championship, in which both failed to score. They continued with Sainteloc for round one of the main championship, then did the last three rounds with G4. Jean Paul was the lead brother in the standings after both finished a race in the top 10 at the last round.

TC Racing, the F4 team founded by Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois that is now active in karting too with its TC Junior Team, will run Beau Lowette in the two Spanish F4 championships.

The 16-year-old Belgian is a single-seater rookie who has raced in European karting over the last three years. He was Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals runner-up in the Rotax Junior class in 2023, and has been in senior classes since.

In Rotax Senior he was 2024 RMC Winter Cup runner-up and 13th in Belgium’s BNL Series, and on OK karts was 13th in WSK’s Euro Series, 27th in its Final Cup and 31st in the CIK-FIA European Championship.

Completing an F4 paddock switch for 2026 is Pablo Riccobono Bello, who came 16th in the centrally-run French F4 last year and will do a double Spanish F4 programme with Global Racing Service. He joined the team ahead of the main championship’s 2025 season finale.

Racing in Spanish F4, but yet to be confirmed for the winter championship grid, are Jorge Bruno and Max Radeck at Drivex School. The team now has six drivers, with at least three to be entered under the ‘DX Racing Team’ banner.

Bruno is already a race-winner in single-seaters, having spent 2025 in Formula 2 Argentina (a relaunched entry-level series for halo-shod cars previously known as Argentinian Formula Renault 2.0 and then Formula Nacional Argentina). As a part-timer he took a victory and two other podiums en route to 10th in the standings.

Radeck is from Portugal and has primarily competed in his home country’s karting scene.

Monlau Motorsport also has two drivers signed for Spanish F4 later in the year: Rahim Alibhai and Miki Blascos.

American racer Alibhai came 22nd in a part-time USF Juniors campaign last year, finishing eighth on his debut, and the 15-year-old is a member of Fernando Alonso’s A14 Management scheme.

Blascos did three Spanish F4 rounds in 2025 with Monlau and was 24th in the standings.

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Photo: Meritus GP

Spanish Formula 4 has announced its cars will start using “advanced sustainable fuel” this season.

French company ETS Racing Fuels will supply it, and its mix will contain “25% advanced sustainable components” this year. Over the course of four seasons it plans to introduce cleaner mixes, until the field is using a ‘100% sustainable’ fuel in 2028.

Quality controls will be introduced to ensure no team gains a performance advantage through the fuel.

There have been many drivers over the last week announced as entering Spanish F4’s 2025 season. MP Motorsport is close to revealing its line-up in full, having named Niklas Schaufler and Hudson Schwartz as signings.

Red Bull junior Schaufler recently turned 15, and made his single-seater debut with MP in Spanish F4’s Winter Championship season opener.

On OK Junior karts the Austrian won the 2023 Italian championship and South Garda Winter Cup, and last year won WSK’s Champions Cup and Super Master Series, was Champions of the Future runner-up and sixth in the CIK-FIA European championship. Schwartz is a third-year single-seater racer who has already come eighth in USF Juniors and USF2000.

Drivex School has signed Kaiden Higgins and Stepan Suslov. Australian junior karting graduate Higgins was seventh in the 2024 Rotax Max Challenge International Trophy, and Suslov comes across from sportscars. He moved from karts to the Iberian Supercars championship last year, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4. In the overall standings he was 22nd, and fourth in the classification for Bronze-graded drivers. He began testing in F4 last November.

Monlau Motorsport has three drivers signed: Lorenzo Campos, Alexander Jacoby and Francisco Monarca.

Angolan racer Campos made his F4 debut at the 2024 Motorsport Games, then contested a Spanish F4 round at Jerez. In 2023 he came third in the WSK CC on an X30 Junior kart, and was 16th in the FIA Karting Academy Trophy.

Jacoby was 40th in Spanish F4 and made a Brazilian F4 cameo in 2024, and Monarca steps up from Argentina’s karting scene.

Sainteloc Racing has also put together a three-car line-up, consisting of Christian Garduno and the Karras twins Jean Paul and Philippe Armand. Garduno is a Mexican karter with F4 test experience, and the Karrases are marginally more experienced. They cameoed in F4 Central European Zone last year, and Philippe Armand represented Greece in the Motorsport Games’ F4 event. The pair spent their karting careers in France.

Tecnicar Motorsport’s first signing is Saudi Arabian F4 runner-up and F4 CEZ race-winner Andrej Petrovic, Rodin Motorsport has added South Korea’s Kyuho Lee – winner of the 2024 FIA World Cup for OK-N karts and currently 17th in F4 Middle East – to its line-up and Argentinian junior karting champion Santino Panetta has joined TC Racing.

Many of the drivers entered last weekend’s Spanish F4 WC opener at Jerez. Schaufler and Schwartz are seventh and eighth in the standings, and further back are Petrovic (11th), Jacoby (18th), Lee (22nd), Philippe Armand Karras (23rd), Suslov (27th), Jean Paul Karras (28th), Monarca (29th), Panetta (30th), Garduno (32nd) and Campos (33rd).

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Photo: Van Amersfoort Racing

Italian Formula 4 title outsider Hiyu Yamakoshi will return to Spanish F4 for this weekend’s round at Motorland Aragon.

The 17-year-old Japanese racer competed in multiple F4 championships last year as a single-seater rookie, coming fifth in French F4 with five podiums, 14th in an in incomplete Spanish F4 campaign with Tecnicar Motorsport and 22nd in F4 United Arab Emirates after only contesting two rounds with Pinnacle VAR.

He stuck with that combination for 2024, making an F4 UAE cameo with Pinnacle Motorsport in February then joining Van Amersfoort Racing in Italian F4.

Despite taking two wins, three other podiums and three poles from the first five rounds and occupying second place in the standings, he is 86 points off the championship lead in Italian F4 and unlikely to challenge for the title due to the domination of Prema’s Freddie Slater.

He will make his Spanish F4 return with the VAR-supported Monlau Motorsport, which is adding a fourth car to its line-up, and compete as a wildcard entrant.

Yamakoshi’s Italian F4 rival Reno Francot will also be joining the grid at Aragon, along with single-seater debutant Rafael Teran, with the Global Racing Service team.

Francot was the F4 Central European Zone runner-up with Jenzer Motorsport in 2023, and made a Spanish F4 cameo with MP Motorsport. The 16-year-old Dutchman began this year by joinging GRS for a Formula Winter Series outing, then returned to Jenzer for Italian F4 where he is currently 13th in the standings with a best finish of fourth.

Teran comes from Colombia and during his karting career races in Europe as well as North and South America.

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Photo: Gedlich Racing/Daniel Burgin

Spain now has a summer and a winter F4 championship, but are the results in the latter likely to paint an accurate picture of who will be at the front in the former this year?

When Formula Winter Series was launched last year in Spain, it had just three full-time drivers, 21 drivers in total and an average grid size of 10 cars. Spanish F4 meanwhile averaged a grid of 32, with 23 full-timers and 50 drivers in total.

But it was a very different picture three months ago when FWinter Series’ second season begun. This time there were 28 drivers who committed to the full four-round schedule, with 47 entrants in total and grid that averaged a massive 37 cars.

So as Spanish F4 returns to action this weekend, is it going to benefit from the increasing popularity of its winter counterpart?

There are 36 drivers signed up for this season, but Global Racing Service’s Alexander Jacoby will miss the season opener due to being underage and Gustaw Wisniewski is racing at Jarama this week for Tecnicar Motorsport in place of fellow single-seater rookie Adam Al Azhari who doesn’t reach the minimum age of 15 until round three. A round two replacement is yet to be named.

When he was a Sauber junior, Wisniewski came ninth in WSK’s Champions Cup and 17th in its Super Master Series for OK Junior karts, and on OK karts finished eighth in the South Garda Winter Cup and WSK Final Cup. After leaving Sauber’s ranks he came fifth in WSK’s Final Cup, eighth in its Euro Series and 11th in the Super Master Series, and on ROK Senior karts was third in the Polish championship.

Al Azhari, younger brother of Keanu (who was ninth in Spanish F4 last year), finished eighth in the Italian championship for OK-J karts in 2021 and graduates to F4 from senior karting. Last month he won the IAME Middle East Cup for X30 Senior karts.

The Tecnicar pair are not the only recent signings in Spanish F4, with several teams expanding their line-ups.

Photo: F4 Spain

TC Racing has been founded by Belgium and Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois with the assistance of ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi, and the new team has signed Cristian Cantu and Gabriel Gomez. Cantu comes from Mexico, where he has spent two years in his home NACAM F4 championship. He came sixth as a rookie, and was championship runner-up last year with seven wins, nine other podiums and three poles.

Gomez was Brazilian champion on OK-J karts in 2020, then on OK karts was Italian champion, CIK-FIA European championship runner-up, third in the WSK Open Cup and 10th in the CIK-FIA World championship. He finished 16th on his car racing debut in the 2023 Spanish F4 finale at Barcelona.

Cantu’s compatriot Ernesto Rivera completes Campos Racing’s six-car line-up. He was the X30 Junior winner at the 2022 USA SuperNationals, and last year won the USA Pro Tour and Winter Series in that category, the Florida Winter Tour on a ROK Junior kart as well as stepping up to KA100 Senior to win at the SuperNationals again. He made his single-seater debut in FWinter Series with Campos, and came 15th in the standings with one podium.

Drivex School has retained Juan Cota and Francisco Macedo after signing them for FWinter Series, where they came sixth and 35th. Cota took a win and a second place but missed a round, while Macedo finished no higher than 13th. Last year Cota came eighth in FWinter Series and 15th in Spanish F4 with the team, and Macedo was racing OK karts.

Two weeks ago Adam Hideg dropped an Italian F4 campaign with Jenzer Motorsport to join Cram Motorsport in Spanish F4, after taking a best finish of sixth and coming 20th in the FWinter Series standings with the former. He was world championship runner-up on OK-J karts in 2022 and when he stepped up to OK karts last year came 16th in WSK’s Final Cup.

Monlau Motorsport will field Tim Gerhards, Rehan Hakim and Lenny Ried. Gerhards did two FWinter Series rounds with Monlau and had a best finish of 16th. He was runner-up in the Rotax Max Euro Trophy for Rotax Junior karts back in 2020, and was 17th in the European championship for KZ2 shifter karts last year.

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Ried was 2022 ADAC Kart Masters champion on OK karts, and came 38th in his full FWinter Series campaign with Monlau.

Today GRS announced Jaden Pariat and Kirill Kutskov will complete its four-car line-up, although Kutskov is only confirmed for round one.

Pariat has plentiful single-seater experience, starting off in FLGB 1300 in his home country where he won, then doing two British F4 rounds in 2022. Last year he made a FWinter Series cameo and claimed one podium from his six British F4 outings.

Kutskov was the WSK Euro Series and world champion on OK karts in 2023, and in 2024 the Russian has come third in the inaugural Saudi Arabian F4 season with one win and seven other podiums and also taken a win in F4 Central European Zone.

Are any of the above signings likely to be contending for wins in Spanish F4 this season? The series has eight returnees from 2023, but two of those competed as guest drivers last year and never threatened the top 15 let alone the top 10 (Castillo and Cram’s Filippo Fiorentino), while Sainteloc Racing’s Maxi Restrepo finished no higher than 21st in his full season, Rodin Motorsport’s Thomas Strauven finished 13th in his cameo with MP Motorsport and Griffin Peebles scored just a single point with Tecnicar and has now moved to MP.

That teams him up with Keanu Al Azhari [pictured above], who took a podium and a pole in 2023, while Campos has Andres Cardenas who came eighth last year with a win, a second place and two poles despite missing a round.

But could Peebles actually be the title favourite ahead of those two? He has started 2024 in style, with four wins, three other podiums and four poles propelling him to the FWinter Series title by 21 points over Cardenas who took two wins and four other podiums. Cota and Al Azhari used their experience to each take a win, but came sixth and seventh in the standings after missing races.

Photo: Gedlich Racing/Daniel Burgin

MP’s car racing debutant Maciej Gladysz missed out on the podium’s top step but was immediately quick and came a distant third in the title race. He now knows four of Spanish F4’s seven tracks, so will be well set to impress in the second half of the season. The other highly rated karters who transitioned to cars in February didn’t quite have the same impact, with Nathan Tye, Rene Lammers – son of ex-F1 racer Jan – and Jan Przyrowski coming 17th, 19th and 22nd in the standings respectively. Tye and Przyrowski did miss two rounds, and Tye did get a pole, but their race results were not strong.

Red Bull junior and junior karting world champion Enzo Tarnvanichkul is Tye and Przyrowski’s team-mate at Campos, and his FWinter Series appearances didn’t even include a points finish. So it may well be that experience on the most part is what counts over karting pedigree this year, and that could put drivers like Cantu, Danish F4 champion Mikkel Pedersen, Brazilian F4 race-winner Fiorentino and Rodin’s F4 Western race-winner Preston Lambert in good stead.

One thing that is for sure that Campos and MP, the teams with the biggest line-ups and the ones who have already tasted plenty of on-track success in F4, will be the benchmark even if neither has a standout driver.

2024 Spanish F4 entries

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Photo: Spanish F4

Monlau Motorsport has announced its full line-up for this year’s Spanish Formula 4 championship, where it will continue to race in partnership with Van Amersfoort Racing.

The two teams started working together last year as Monlau moved into single-seater racing in Spanish F4, running three cars. This year it will run four, with the already announced Pablo Sarrazin being joined by 17-year-olds Fernando Barrichello and Ricardo Gracia, and wildcard entrant Eloi Gonzalez Moreno.

Barrichello is the son of former Formula 1 star and reigning Stock Car Brasil champion Rubens and the younger brother of Formula Regional Europe racer Eduardo.

He started his single-seater career last year in the inaugural season of the Brazilian F4 championship, driving for the Full Time Sports team which has father has raced for in stock cars throughout the last decade, and he won two reversed-grid races to come seventh in the standings.

Barrichello then gained F4 mileage in Europe by joining Prema for two tests in Italy, and started 2023 by entering the F4 United Arab Emirates season opener.

His Brazilian F4 team-mate Gracia won one reversed-grid race and came ninth in the standings last year, and doubled up in Spanish F4 where he could only finish 31st in the championship. In karts, Gracia won the 2019 Brazilian Cup title in the Junior class.

Monlau says it “reserves a fourth single-seater” for Gonzalez Moreno, who was Spanish karting champion in the X30 Senior class last year. His status as a wildcard driver, for when he does join the grid, has been awarded by the Spanish automobile federation.

The post Monlau adds Barrichello, Gracia and Gonzalez to Spanish F4 line-up appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: KCMG

Pablo Sarrazin will move from the French Formula 4 championship to the Spanish one for his second year in single-seaters, and will race for the Monlau Motorsport team.

Monlau competes in partnership with Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing, and also made its first venture into open-wheel racing last year in Spanish F4 as a three-car outfit.

Sarrazin is the son of ex-Formula 1 and Formula E racer Stephane, who is a two-time Le Mans Series champion, European Rally Championship event winner and former World Rally Championship factory driver.

“I’m really happy to join the VAR/Monlau team, thanks to everyone at KCMG Driver Development Project, as without them this wouldn’t be possible,” said the younger Sarrazin.

“It’s great to have Edoardo [Liberati, driver coach] by my side again, his knowledge was a big help last year and I trust him to help me improve throughout 2023. I know what my targets are, and I’ll do everything I can to achieve them. Now, we need to continue the hard work during pre-season to be ready for the opening round at Spa in May.”

Sarrazin made his single-seater debut in a guest French F4 appearance in 2021, and also began his rallying career in Latvia (due to the country’s lower minimum age). For 2022 he decided to concentrate on his car racing career, and scored three times en route to 18th in the French F4 standings.

KCMG DDP was launched two years ago, and 2022 British F4 champion Alex Dunne was the first single-seater driver on its books. The Hong Kong-based company also created the halo-shod car used in the Motorsport Games F4 Cup, and has its own team in Super Formula.

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Photo: ACI Sport

US Racing’s Alex Dunne set the pace in the first Italian Formula 4 free practice session at Mugello on Thursday afternoon.

Initially it was AKM Motorsport’s drivers that set the pace with Ruiqu Liu setting an early benchmark which team-mate Valerio Rinicella improved on three times to keep himself at the top of the timesheet.

BVM Racing’s Alfio Spina was the first non-AKM driver to go quickest, setting a 1m50.111s lap. He was only in first place for 26 seconds before US Racing’s Marcus Amand crossed the line and became the first driver to lap sub-1m50s.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli shaved three tenths of a second off Amand’s benchmark as he completed his next lap, then Dunne went four tenths up on Antonelli half a minute after.

Dunne stayed on top until the end of the session, improving two more times to end with a best effort of 1m48.500s.

There was a red flag period during the session when PHM Racing’s Viktoria Blokhina went off into the gravel.

At the very end of FP1, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Martinius Stenshorne and Antonelli jumped up to second and third, shuffling Arvid Lindblad (VAR) and Kacper Sztuka (US) down to fourth and fifth.

Returning to the grid this weekend with Prema is McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu, while US Racing’s line-up changes with Zachary David not present and Ginetta Junior driver Akshay Bohra making his F4 debut in his place.

Monlau Motorsport’s line-up expands to three cars with NACAM F4 race-winner Jesse Carrasquedo Jr joining.

Free practice results

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MSV, owned by ex-Formula 1 racer Jonathan Palmer, runs 27 series and six British circuits including two former grand prix tracks, and also has a site in France called Couvron which it plans to develop into a venue focused on electric motorsport.

A tender process was began by publicly-owned company Navarra Impulsa Cultura, Deporte y Ocio this May to determine a future for the Navarra circuit that was end its dependance on regional funding.

The circuit opened in 2010, and held Auto GP and then a race weekend including Superleague Formula and the FIA GT1 world championship that year. Since then it has hosted stages of the Vuelta a Espana cycling race and the Spanish Formula 4 championship, which vists this weekend. There is also a neighbouring karting track.

Once the purchase goes through, MSV will finalise Navarra’s 2023 events calendar and also completely resurface the track.

“The acquisition in principle of Navarra circuit is tremendously exciting and another landmark in the expansion of MSV,” said Palmer.

“It is an extensive and very impressive facility and our ambitious plans should enable the circuit to realise its full potential, with the intention of significantly increasing its levels of daily occupancy and the number of high profile race events.”

MSV has not commented on whether it would consider visiting Navarra with some of its series, which include single-seater championships GB3, GB4 and United Formula Ford, for tests or races in the future. The British GT championship that GB3 supports is visting Algarve in Portugal next year, but GB3 is yet to announce its 2023 calendar.

Friday was busy for Navarra as in addition to announcing the sale it was also running a pre-event test session for Spanish F4.

Campos Racing’s points leader Nikola Tsolov was the fastest driver, heading team-mate and title rival Hugh Barter by a slim 0.019 seconds. His other title rival Timoteusz Kucharczyk was ninth fastest for MP Motorsport.

Danish F4 star Noah Stromsted was fifth fastest ahead of his series debut and first F4 races in almost a year.

In total 30 drivers took part in the test, with the top 20 covered by a second. In addition to several drivers who had already been announced as joining the grid, there was a change at Monlau Motorsport with Niels Koolen replacing Martinius Stenshorne at the Van Amersfoort Racing-linked team for this weekend’s races.

The 20-year-old Dutchman raced in senior karting across Europe prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his father is Dakar Rally competitor Kees Koolen.

Test results

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Photos: ACI Sport

How do you improve on six titles out of a possible six? That was the question facing Van Amersfoort Racing’s F4 squad as it started 2022 after taking the driver, rookie and teams’ titles in ADAC and Italian F4 last year

Formula Scout sat down with the Dutch team’s chief executive officer Rob Niessink to discuss the phenomenal success of 2021, VAR’s move into Spanish Formula 4 and the next wave of talented teenagers making their first steps in single-seaters.

“Last year was really amazing,” says Niessink. “We had a couple of years where the drivers we had were really good: Jak Crawford and Jonny Edgar and Dennis Hauger. For many years it was really strong and Ollie Bearman was the same, an extremely good driver.”

Bearman, now racing as a Ferrari junior in FIA Formula 3, became the first ever driver to win Germany’s ADAC F4 and the Italian F4 titles while racing for VAR in 2021 and he did so by taking 17 wins and nine further podiums across the two series.

“Sometimes you have years where everything is perfect and it was a year like that. Ollie was prepared to work hard, during COVID-19 he was for weeks living in the Netherlands or living in Italy. Any time he had he was with us in the workshop, or doing simulator work or in meetings. He used one of our offices as a classroom with online lessons. The atmosphere with the other drivers was good.”

Bearman sweep of both titles included a run of nine consecutive on-the-road wins in Italian F4, although his eighth win at Imola was lost to a disqualification over what ACI Sport saw as a non-compliant engine. It’s a decision which still rankles with VAR, though the points loss was unsubstantial, as for Niessink it was a matter of honour and the team’s reputation.

“If we had accepted that instantly it would have been ‘sorry, we’re caught’ and that’s it. But I said, ‘we didn’t do anything’. It cost a fortune – we had an attorney in Italy, because it was all done in Italian, we had another attorney in the Netherlands, we had to travel up and down [during the appeal of the DSQ].

“It took six months and several hearings, and the outcome is that as a team we are responsible [for running a non-compliant part] but there is no proof of something which makes us guilty and that’s good enough for me.”

As a result, the original exclusion from race three at Imola stood, although at one stage “it could theoretically have been that we’re excluded for the whole event”.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference but I didn’t want to have the reputation damage, I didn’t want that somebody could have said ‘yeah, I’m not sure’.” Which leads into Niessink’s next point.

“It was almost embarrassing to see how dominant we were with Bearman.

“I said to Frits [van Amersfoort, founder of the eponymous team] at Imola, ‘if I were another team I would do everything to completely strip the VAR car, to see what is happening here’ because we were so strong. At the moment they took that engine we were 100 points ahead or something like that in the championship. Let’s imagine that we had done something that was not correct, then we would already have switched back to standard for some time, of course.”

Following that domination of Europe’s strongest F4 championships, as well as titles in the previous years with Joey Mawson (2016), Hauger (2019) and Edgar (2020), the start to VAR’s 2022 campaigns has been a tough one as its inexperienced driver line-up has struggled to make an impression against the Prema steamroller.

Nikita Bedrin mirrored Bearman’s successes by winning the titles in the two series’ rookie classifications with VAR in 2021. But events beyond the team’s control before the current seasons started threw its 2022 plans into the air with the Russian.

“The original plan was, of course, that we would have had Nikita in his second year until the moment the Ukraine war started,” Niessink confirms. “We had a signed contract. Everything was lined up.”

Photo: ADAC

But the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the consequent international sanctions meant the budget was no longer available to run Bedrin and he found a way to continue his racing career by joining rival team PHM Racing.

“Although we’re a big team, I couldn’t afford to let him drive for free. Personally, I still have a good contact with him. Of course, I want to win the race myself and I want to beat PHM, but I’m really happy for the kid if he wins the race.

“Nikita is really a very nice guy. I get along with his manager, Peter Aleshin, very good. We all felt really sorry and we were trying to look for a solution for a couple of weeks but then there was another opportunity where it was more doable for the team where he’s driving now than it was for me.”

Without Bedrin to lead VAR’s assault, the line-up features some exciting talents, but ones who need some time to develop. Martinius Stenshorne, in his first season out of karting, has impressed in the first two Italian rounds, scoring three fifth places at Imola and lying seventh in the standings, while Emmo Fittipaldi and Arias Deukmedjan scored a point apiece at Misano.

“We tested a lot in the past with Fittipaldi and [Brando] Badoer and testing went well. Stenshorne the same, we did a lot of testing with Martinius in post-season, before the winter and during the winter. And he’s also a very fast driver. And Deukmedjan can be a surprise, he’s probably faster than he shows but he’s typically the raw diamond.

“Jules [Castro] was originally planned to run in Spain with us. The idea was that he would have been interested in doing the Italian and German programme, but we were full with Nikita so he went to Spain because he definitely wants to drive with us. When Nikita left we said we have a seat here but in his experience he’s quite far behind the other guys.”

All of the drivers mentioned is the complete VAR line-up for now, but there’s another name on the way, and potentially the most exciting driver within the VAR squad is still too young to race.

Oliver Rowland’s Red Bull-backed protege Arvid Lindblad will debut in car racing once he turns 15 in August, meaning he will only be able to do the final three Italian F4 rounds, starting appropriately enough at Austria’s Red Bull Ring in September.

The Anglo-Swedish karting sensation follows a line of racers such as Crawford, Edgar and Hauger to have been placed in a VAR F4 seat by Red Bull.

“We have a very good relationship with [Red Bull’s driver advisor] Dr Helmut Marko, and he asked us to give him some outings this year as preparation for 2023,” says Niessink.

In addition to his current karting programme, now he is recovered from his scary February crash in the Champions of the Future Winter Series, last month Lindblad started his journey to F4 by testing in a single-seater for the first time in Italy.

Lindblad ran in a first-generation F4 car, the Tatuus T-014 that was replaced in many European series at the end of 2021, in his two tests at Vallelunga and Misano as VAR awaits delivery of a sixth T-421 chassis.

Unsurprisingly the 14-year-old has impressed Niessink with his approach as well as his speed. “OK, the old car is at the peak of its development so might not be slower than the new car,” he says, referring to Lindblad topping the times in both of the in-season tests, but even so to adapt so quickly to cars is incredible. “And Arvid listens to the engineers, gives good feedback and takes on board what we tell him.”

It’s not just Lindblad who has had to wait for a first race appearance of the year, as VAR missed ADAC F4’s Spa-Francorchamps season opener in April and cited the “late delivery of cars, which has already strongly disrupted our pre-season testing so far, [and] has caused a serious lack of preparation time” as the cause of its absence.

Niessink is quick to make clear that the decision was in no way a criticism of chassis supplier Tatuus, a company which has been working flatout to built and deliver over 100 of the T-421s in the face of global supply chain complications.

Photo: ADAC

“I have apologised to Giovanni [Delfino – Tatuus CEO] for all the messages I gave you that were harsh or pushing but he’s also fated,” explains Niessink. “Tatuus did what they could but there are more teams that still don’t have the cars, lack of raw materials, transport capacity.”

Niessink doesn’t blame Tatuus for the situation. “The teams gave the promoters the information, the promoters gave Tatuus the information and Tatuus did their production planning and delivery based on the information they received. I don’t want any special treatment but I don’t want anything less than somebody else.”

Naturally keen to defend its ADAC F4 titles, VAR pushed the series organiser to postpone round one, but with no success. “The only proper solution that would have worked for everyone would have been postponing the first rounds but ADAC had difficulty because they could never come back to that Spa event.”

Having missed one round out of a scheduled six, Niessink is sceptical that his team can make up for the lost points to have a successful title defence. Discussions with the ADAC had raised the possibility of a dropped scores mechanism being introduced but this now seems to be off the table.

“We decided last year to continue with the championship based on the results we got. The initial programme was to do a couple of rounds and then we’ll see. I think it was the same with Prema.

“But the whole Spa thing and the lack of co-operation to support us in postponing the first event means the chances that we do the whole series are smaller than they were a month ago. I told them if we don’t compete in Spa it will be hard for us.

“We ran at Hockenheim and will do the Zandvoort round,” he says, but after that VAR does not currently plan to continue in Germany. Niessink adds that the ADAC could have done more to generate interest in the series for 2022. With the Italian series able to make regular announcements of new teams and drivers as the new car maintained grid sizes of over 30, there was less communication from Germany and its full-time grid is set to be around 12 cars.

Photo: VAR

Niessink feels strongly that ADAC F4 “made a mistake” in not promoting VAR’s plan, which it had “since early days”, to run five cars in the series this year. “I said to them: ‘Why don’t you announce that? Why wait for us to announce drivers?’” The counter-argument is VAR was already a five-car team in ADAC F4, so there was little for the series to announce.

He gives credit to the ADAC for its work over the years in organising “a strong series and Sebastian Dietz is a strong series manager but they missed the boat on this one just by waiting to see what the other teams would do”.

As VAR is seemingly cutting back on its ADAC F4 involvement now, it has alspo expanded into the increasingly competitive Spanish F4 championship in a joint venture with local team and technical school, Monlau Motorsport.

The strength of Spanish F4 right now was the main factor behind VAR’s move to add it to its schedule.

“It used to be a kind of B class, if you understand what I mean, and from there on they grew and they grew. That is, of course, also because of the strong co-operation between the teams. We just want to be competing there to give drivers another alternative and that means that Germany is having a hard time.”

“It’s a really strong co-operation,” Niessink says of the Dutch-Spanish tie-up. “I’m really happy with it.”

“Operationally speaking it’s their team but in a way that we have signed the drivers, the drivers are ours. Our engineers are also involved there. In another industry you might call it outsourcing but there’s an intense supervision – two of our engineers live there in Spain.

“We exchange a lot of information and experience and I feel very comfortable with the relationship. Jaime [Serrano], the boss of Monlau, of the school, the university, is very relaxed and very solid. The agreements are fine and the work is fine. The team manager, David Simon, who is my main contact, is very experienced and really understands what it takes.”

Photo: Spanish F4

Monlau’s lead driver is Robert De Haan, the 2021 FEED Racing France shootout winner, who impressed VAR when he joined for the ADAC and Italian F4 finales last year to get his first single-seater racing experience.

“He did an extremely good job in Monza with us last year and he did a really good job at the Nurburgring. I rate him very highly,” says Niessink.

“I think he will learn faster and more in Spain because there’s less pressure,” he explains but acknowledges that ultimately the decision to race in Spain “had basically to do with budget” which he estimates to be around 25% lower than Italian F4’s.

“We’re there to be successful. We as a team, together with the drivers, are still trying to work with the engines but we’ll be there. In Portimao we made really big steps during the weekend.” However, “again the cars arriving late didn’t help”.

Despite the one-off costs relating to purchasing the T-421s, VAR says that it hasn’t increased by a “single Euro in the price we have, not for the championship, not for testing” on the budgets it required drivers to bring in previous years, and “we are confronted with price increases such as raw materials but I don’t pass anything of that to our clients”.

Niessink is reluctant to keep harking back to the supply issues but is clearly frustrated that a super-professional team such as VAR, which is now racing in Formula 2 and FIA F3 for 2022 in addition to Euroformula, Formula Regional European Championship and F4, has not been able to perform so far to the maximum of its potential because of external factors.

“In honesty, only yesterday [Friday practice at Imola] for my idea the season started whereas normally it starts in January or even the months before, which is not to complain again about the cars but that has a big impact. We are behind and we are trying to catch up.

“We originally had in mind to start testing in January and February. We had F2 and F3, so a new team and a new organisation.

“So, we thought again not to do F4 United Arab Emirates but that was a decision based on the idea that we would have the first cars in December so we thought ‘OK, January, February, then we’re still okay’ but then the cars came so very late that we were behind in our programme.

“I’m sure we’ll catch up but the beginning of the season is always very important. You want to be there as soon as possible and then make it through the season.”

But, he concludes: “As soon as we feel strong, then it’s very hard to stop us.”

The post What next for Van Amersfoort Racing in F4 after a record-breaking year? appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Spanish F4

There were 29 drivers on track in the pre-event test session for the Spanish Formula 4 season opener at Algarve.

The three-hour test on Friday morning marked the appearance of three last-minute additions to the grid, as well as a surprise change of teams for Lola Lovinfosse.

With Drivex School she claimed a best finish of 13th as a rookie in 2021, and had signed to race for Global Racing Service this year. However she will now instead drive for Teo Martin Motorsport.

The debuting Van Amersfoort Racing and Monlau Motorsport alliance has signed 16-year-old Jaf Machiels as its second driver alongside Robert De Haan.

Machiels made his single-seater debut in F4 United Arab Emirates earlier this year and taken two 21st places from three rounds. He tested with Monlau last year. His father Louis was the GT World Challenge Europe Pro-Am champion in 2019.

Drivex has expanded its line-up to four cars for round one by adding recent British F4 debutant Noah Lisle, and MP Motorsport has filled both of its four-car teams with the late addition of Kirill Smal.

The 16-year-old Russian raced in F4 for the past two years, coming third in the Italian and UAE championships in 2021, and was set to move up to Formula Regional European Championship this year with KIC Motorsport.

His country’s invasion of Ukraine instigated the unravelling of Smal’s step up and a month ago he found refuge as a factory Birel ART karter driving a Ricciardo Kart chassis in the CIK-FIA European Karting Championship and WSK Euro Series’ KZ2 shifter class.

“It was hard to believe a couple of weeks ago, but this season I will be racing for MP in the Spanish F4 championship alongside my KZ2 program. Many thanks to everyone who made this possible,” said Smal, who will race under Kyrgyzstan’s flag as he is not allowed to compete with his own.

MP was the pace-setting team through the test, with Valerio Rinicella on top towards the end of the first hour. His team-mate Tymoteusz Kucharczyk then took over and improved to set a 1m45.425s benchmark halfway through.

There was almost no track action that took place after that, with most drivers staying in the pits and Kucharczyk ending up leading a lockout of the top five by MP.

While it and Campos Racing are both running two teams each, they have not disclosed how their line-ups will be split up.

Cram Motorsport meanwhile has officially entered itself under the Cram-Pinnacle name, having initially been understood to be moving into the series under its own after buying Pinnacle’s assets.

Test results

The post Kucharczyk quickest in test, Lisle, Machiels and Smal join Spanish F4 appeared first on Formula Scout.