Photo: F4 Spain

Finnish drivers?Roope Markkanen?and?Tuomas Tujula?claimed the victories on Sunday at the opening Spanish Formula 4 round at Navarra.

Markkanen took the race two victory from fourth on the grid, benefitting when Dutch rivals?Jarno Opmeer?and?Richard Verschoor collided and ran wide while fighting over the lead.

Red Bull Junior Verschoor had started from pole after winning race one but was passed early on by SMP F4 leader Opmeer, who had started third. Verschoor’s attempted fightback led to?the clash?that presented?Markkanen with a maiden F4 win.

Verschoor finished less than four tenths behind, with Opmeer completing the podium 2.5s back.?Alexander Vartanyan had another poor start but finished fourth, just ahead of the sole Spanish driver Xavier Lloveras.

Vartanyan made an even worse start in race three, stalling on?pole position. Verschoor took up the lead, but was forced to retire when he got stuck in third gear.

That handed the lead and eventually victory to Tujula, who finished last in race two after being penalised for jumping the start.

Behind that, there was a collision between Opmeer and Lloveras of which Markkanen was the beneficiary once again,?the Finn finishing second from seventh on the grid and taking the early championship lead.

While Lloveras retired, Opmeer finished fourth behind?Juuso Puhakka.

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Photo: F4 Spain

Red Bull Junior Richard Verschoor?won the first ever Spanish Formula 4 race at the Navarra circuit.

The Dutch driver led from pole position to chequered flag, finishing up four seconds clear of?Alex Vartanyan?in a field made up almost entirely of drivers that are already competing in the similarly Koiranen-run SMP series.

Racing here for the Drivex team co-owned by Pedro de la Rosa, Vartanyan had slipped from second to sixth with a bad start but the Russian produced a fine fightback, passing the battling?Roope Markkanen?and?Jarno Opmeer?in one move.

SMP F4 leader Opmeer got ahead of Markkanen – one of six drivers entered by Double R Racing – to complete the podium.

Xavier Lloveras – the solitary?Spanish driver present – finished fifth ahead of?Tuomas Tujula and?Nikita Volegov.

Rasmus Markkanen – involved in race-ending contact for Juho Valtanen on lap one – ended up eighth, with Nordic Formula Renault 1.6 driver?Juuso Puhakka and?Tuomas Haapalainen completing the finishers.

Vartanyan later claimed pole position for the third and final race of the weekend in the second qualifying session.

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Photo: GEPA pictures/Dutch Photo Agency

Jarno Opmeer?claimed his fifth SMP Formula 4 victory in the second race of the weekend at Zandvoort, before?Richard Verschoor ended his drought in the finale.

With the race two grid positions set by the race one result, Opmeer led from start to finish ahead of?Roope Markkanen, who shot from to second at the start in front of Verschoor.

Opmeer’s winning margin was only nine tenths over Finland’s Markkanen,?while Verschoor gave up the final podium place to Alexander Vartanyan when he ran wide into the gravel trying to pass the Finn around the outside.

Xavier Lloveras took fifth in front of Finns?Rasmus Markkanen,?Juho Valtanen and?Tuomas Tujula.

Starting from pole for the fourth time since his one previous victory in his single-seater debut at Sochi, Verschoor this time made a good start and led throughout, even though he twice had two-second margins eradicated by a safety car.

Vartanyan beat Opmeer into second place at the start while Valtanen took fourth ahead of the squabbling Markkanen twins, with Rasmus eventually beating Roope.

Behind them Tujula and?Artem Petrov?crashed heavily to trigger the second safety car, promoting Lloveras and?Roman Lebedev.

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Photo: SMP F4

Jarno Opmeer scored his fourth win from sixth starts to boost his SMP Formula 4 Championship lead in the first race of the Max Verstappen Race Days event at Zandvoort.

It was Verstappen’s fellow Red Bull athlete?Richard Verschoor on pole once again, but he again got into difficulty in the race with a poor start relegating him to sixth.

Rasmus Markkanen meanwhile beat Opmeer into the lead from third on the grid, but the Dutch driver would pass the Finn on lap two and won by almost six seconds.

Verschoor charged his way back up to second, relegating Markkanen to third ahead of twin brother Roope Markkanen.

Xavier Lloveras was fifth ahead of?Tuomas Tujula, who was signed this week by Double R Racing to also take part in Spanish F4.

Alex Vartanyan beat?Juho Valtanen to seventh, with?Danny Kroes ninth and?Nikita Volegov taking 10th from 15th on the grid.

Verschoor later took another pole position for the third race of the weekend.

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Photo: SMP F4 Championship

Jarno Opmeer increased his lead in the SMP Formula 4 standings with victories in both Sunday races at home at Zandvoort.

Third on the grid for race two, Opmeer gained a place off the start when?Richard Verschoor stalled from P2 and then took the lead away from race one winner?Tuomas Tujula on the second lap.

Juho Valtanen followed him past Tujula a lap later and quickly slashed the gap to Opmeer. A very close battle ensued, and a mere 14 thousandths of a second separated them at the finish.

Tujula was just half a second back in third, while?Danny Kroes was a lonely fourth.?Rasmus Markkanen just held off?Alex Vartanyan for fifth, with Verschoor fighting back to seventh after falling to 17th.

On the day that fellow Dutch Red Bull driver Max Verstappen took a shock F1 win, new Red Bull Junior Verschoor had a frustrating day. He claimed pole race three and led for eight of the 12 laps before serving a drive-through penalty for a jump start, which with the majority of the race run behind the safety car meant he finished 13th.

“After I finished I went to race control and they said I had moved at the start as the third red light came on,” said Verschoor.

“I didn’t even realise I had moved, was just feeling for the biting point of the clutch, I didn’t jump the start. They said I had only moved a bit but it was enough for them.”

Opmeer benefitted to take the win ahead of Tujula and Vartanyan. Opmeer’s points tally is up to 98, with Vartanyan on 56, Tujula on 53 and Verschoor on 42.

SMP F4 will be back at Zandvoort on 3-5 June for the Max Verstappen Race Days with a large crowd likely.

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Photo: SMP F4 Championship

Tuomas Tujula upstaged new Red Bull Junior Richard Verschoor on his home turf to win the first SMP Formula 4 race at Zandvoort.

Finnish driver Tujula qualified third, and moved past Jarno Opmeer at the start as Verschoor led from pole.

At a safety car restart (after Gleb Zotov crashed at the pit exit after serving a drive-through penalty), Tujula capitalised on a lock-up from Verschoor at Turn 1 to snatch the lead.

Another saftey car, caused by an off for Henri Kauppi, gave Verschoor one lap to try and regain the lead, but Tujula held on.

Championship leader Opmeer dropped from second to fourth at the start, but would regain a podium spot from Juho Valtanen at the first restart.

A charging Rasmus Markkanen also passed Valtanen and chased Opmeer, but his attempted pass led to a crash and retirement.

With Spaniard Xavier Lloveras forced out by mechanical failure, Alexander Vartanyan took fifth in front of Danny Kroes and Nikita Tziortzis.

Roope Markkanen, Nikita Sitnikov and Artem Slutskiy completed the top 10 ahead of Nikita Volegov, who had qualified sixth for his single-seater debut.

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Photo: SMP F4

Promising Russian teenager Alexander Vartanyan and Finnish karting duo Juho Valtanen and Tuomas Tujula?are among the first drivers to sign up for SMP Formula 4 in 2016.

Vartanyan made two appearances in the series last year after turning 15, claiming a best finish of fourth at Moscow.

He stepped up to single-seaters with a strong karting record, including fourth the WSK Super Master Series and 11th in the CIK-FIA European Championship last year.

The news of his continued participation in the series next year – announced as part of organiser Koiranen’s 2016 plans – came after winning a race at Portimao last weekend in the F4 Winter Junior Challenge.

Also competing there were the two Finns Valtanen and Tujula, with the former claiming a pole position in Portugal.

Valtanen, 19, has been Finnish karting champion for the past two seasons. He’s also competed internationally, including taking 11th in this year’s world championship, while back in 2011 he was third in the CIK-FIA Academy Trophy behind Charles Leclerc and Ben Barnicoat.

Tujula, 18, was fourth in last year’s Finnish championship and this year competed in the KZ class in the European and world championships. In 2013 he was champion for the FIA Northern Euoprean Zone (where SMP F4 takes place), two spots ahead of Valtanen.

The Finnish pair will hope to follow in the footsteps of compatriot Niko Kari, who won the inaugural SMP F4 title this year and last week was announced as a Red Bull Junior in European Formula 3.

The fourth and final driver confirmed at this stage is Russian Denis Mavlanov, who was 14th in the 2015 season with a best result of eighth.

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Photo: Koiranen

British Formula 4 racer Enaam Ahmed won the Koiranen-run Winter Junior Challenge held at Jerez and Portimao over the first two weekends in December.

Seven drivers took part in the six races with the Tatuus-Abarth F4 cars fielded by Koiranen in its SMP championship, and which it will introduce into Spain next year.

French championship regular and occasional SMP series driver Simo Laaksonen won all three races on the opening weekend at Jerez, but two wins from Ahmed in Portugal were enough for him to take the overall crown.

Ahmed, who won five SMP races alongside an MSA Formula campaign in 2015 after dominating junior-level karting, receives prize money that can be used towards competing in the new Spanish series next year.

“I am happy about the outcome of my year and it is always satisfying to finish on a high note,” he said.

“It has been tough as the competition was hard and I am glad as the ?75,000 prize money will surely help me do several F4 Championships next year.”

Winning the second race at Portimao was Alexander Vartanyan, who contested two SMP rounds this year after stepping out of karting.

Also present were Devlin DeFrancesco, making his single-seater race bow after signing with Carlin for MSA Formula next year, and American F2000 driver Quinlan Lall, who has tested in Formula 3 with T-Sport.

Completing the field were Finnish karters Juho Valtanen and Tuomas Tujula, with Valtanen beating Ahmed to pole in Portimao and all seven drivers within less than seven tenths.

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