Photo: NACAM F4

Scuderia Martiga’s Kory Enders won all three races of NACAM Formula 4’s latest non-championship event at Autodromo Miguel E. Abed.

Nine cars turned up to the circuit, but RPL Racing’s Andres Perez de Lara and Ram Racing’s Alex Berumen skipped races, meaning seven cars completed the triple-header.

Colombian karting graduate Lucas Medina was shown as recording the pole lap of 1m33.557s on timing screens in qualifying, but the Ram Racing driver actually started second for race one behind Enders.

It was then a race of total domination by Enders on Saturday, beating Mexican team-mate Alvaro Zambrano – a former karter – by a massive 48 seconds.

Daniel Forcadell completed the podium a further eight seconds behind, while the last driver on the lead lap was series boss Flavio Abed’s son Emil. While the series claimed it was an impressive debut performance by the youngster, he actually entered the previous non-championship races at MSR Houston and switched teams to RRK Motorsports.

Race two was supposed to take place later on Saturday but was postponed by a day without explanation, and Enders converted pole into another controlling win. This time Medina was second, with Forcadell a distant third again.

The third race was then set to take place a few hours after, but Emil Abed was DJing in event hospitality at the scheduled start time that had briefed to the drivers and so it wasn’t until some time later did race three take place.

Enders had another start-to-finish run, putting half a second between himself and the chasing Medina on the opening lap. Over the next 15 laps he extended that gap to 14.571s, and Forcadell was another 10s back in third.

Valentino Mini dropped out early on, and the Panama-born teenager wasn’t the only retiree as Mariano Martinez also ended his race early.

NACAM F4’s sole ‘championship’ round will take place in Mexico City next weekend in support of the Formula 1 grand prix taking place, but the event consists of only one race right now and it is yet to be declared what the status of the winner will be.

The previous plan had been to have a multi-race weekend with the potential for a ‘NACAM F4 Cup’ combining the results of the two races using the series’ usual points system given it would be too short a run of races to award championship status.

Results
Race 1 (16 laps)
1 Kory Enders Scuderia Martiga 25m15.542s
2 Alvaro Zambrano Scuderia Martiga +48.480s
3 Daniel Forcadell Easy-Shop.com Racing +56.062s
4 Emil Abed RRK Motorsports +1m25.125s
5 Lucas Medina Ram Racing  +1 lap
6 Andres Perez de Lara RPL Racing +1 lap
Ret Valentino Mini RRK Motorsports
Ret Mariano Martinez Ram Racing
DNS Alex Berumen Ram Racing
Pole: Enders, 1m33.557s
Fastest lap: Enders, 1m33.556s

Race 2 (16 laps)
1 Enders 25m25.021s
2 Medina +6.637s
3 Forcadell +23.440s
4 Abed +24.015s
5 Martinez +3 laps
Ret Zambrano
Ret Mini
DNS Perez de Lara
DNS Berumen
FL: Medina, 1m33.797s

Race 3 (16 laps)
1 Enders
2 Medina +14.571s
3 Forcadell +25.342s
4 Abed +40.788s
5 Zambrano +1m26.163s
Ret Martinez
Ret Mini
DNS Perez de Lara
DNS Berumen
FL: Enders, 1m34.974s

The post Kory Enders dominates NACAM F4’s third non-championship 2021 round appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: NACAM F4

NACAM Formula 4 concluded its trip to the United States today with the last of its six supposedly non-championship races at MSR Houston.

Last week’s three-race round at the Texan circuit was pencilled in as the season opener, but mid-weekend the series’ CEO Flavio Abed and the series’ social media administrator labelled the event as a pre-season test despite the tests having already taken place and the drivers being well into a full race weekend.

Conflicting information on championship status continued until it was time to head to the Motorsport Ranch circuit, except that was swapped out with no announcement for a second round at Houston that was once again called a pre-season test while also recognised by Abed as a racing round in confusing circumstances.

Ram Racing’s Colombian karting graduate Lucas Medina started the racing on top with a narrow 0.113-second defeat of Scuderia Martiga’s American Kory Enders, a series race-winner in 2018 and since a racer in Indy Pro 2000, and Euromotor Sport’s David Morales.

Enders had taken pole for the race by an even smaller 0.014s over team-mate Jose Andres Martinez with a 1m32.315s lap.

Rain hit the circuit for the next day’s action, and Enders only lasted four laps in race two of the round. Andres Martinez won with Medina finishing in second, and Medina was second again to a dominant Enders in the final race who rebounded with a 26.996s win.

Chara Mansur (Martiga) and Andres Martinez completed the podium in races two and three.

Enders showed off his experience in round two by romping to pole by 0.994s, while second to seventh was covered by less than half a second, and he then dominated the first race of the week.

Rebounding from a poor opening round which featured contact and a mechanical problem, RPL Racing’s Davis Barringer made it onto the podium for the first time in third. He’s set to race in US F4 this year.

Ram took a double win on Thursday, where fresh tyres proved to be advantagous, with Alejandro Berumen pipping Andres Martinez to victory in the day’s first race and then Medina dominating the finale.

If the races have counted for points, then Andres Martinez now leads the way while Maxwell Jamieson (RPL) and Emil Abed (MotorX Racing Team) sit at the bottom. Abed, son of the series CEO, finished no higher than seventh in the nine-car grid.

Results round-up [pole in bold, fastest lap in italics]

The post Jose Andres Martinez leads the way in NACAM F4’s US races appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Scuderia Martiga will field Eduardo Barrichello, son of Formula 1 race-winner Rubens, for the season opening NACAM Formula 4 round supporting the Mexican Grand Prix later this month.

The 2019-20 season begins on October 26/27 at Mexico City on the same weekend that F1 makes its annual visit, with six further rounds in the country including a second visit to the F1 venue in May for the season finale.

Barrichello, 18, raced in USF2000 this year with Miller Vinatieri Motorsports and then DEForce Racing, picking up two top-five finishes and ending up 11th in the standings. His first car racing experience came in United States F4 the year before.

Joining Barrichello at Martiga, which has previously ran with the support of Mexican former F1 driver Esteban Gutierrez, is Kory Enders and Nicolas Christodoulou.

Enders has won four of the eight races he has contested for the team over the last two seasons, and this year finished seventh with DEForce in Indy Pro 2000.

Christodulou finished fourth in the 2018-19 NACAM standings with Martiga but failed to win a race, and is already confirmed to drive for the whole of the upcoming season.

Eloy Sebastian, winner of the Formula Renault 1.6-based Formula Mexico title, is the only other driver confirmed for the series so far.

Previous NACAM F4 champions include Manuel Sulaiman and Calvin Ming, both podium finishers in USF2000, and IP2000 racer Moises de la Vara. Super Formula racer Patricio O’Ward was also a race-winner in the series little over three years ago.

The post Eduardo Barrichello joins Mexican GP’s NACAM F4 support races appeared first on Formula Scout.

Manuel Sulaiman extended his NACAM Formula 4 lead with a dominant weekend at?Aut?dromo Internacional de Aguascalientes and podiums at?Autodromo Miguel E. Abed.

The Ram Racing driver took comfortable wins in the first and third races of the first round, and was second in race two.

Closest title rival Jak Crawford finished 3.743 seconds behind in race one but lost ground in the title race after retiring from the third race.

RPL Racing’s Emiliano Richards took his first win in race two, fending off Sulaiman by 2.236s after a closely fought battle.

Crawford bounced back with a dominant weekend at Miguel E. Abed, taking two dominant wins and a third place for Scuderia Martiga.

Sulaiman was not able to match Crawford across the weekend, finishing a distant second behind him in races one and three, and could only manage eighth in the second race.

Richards’ team-mate Perez de Lara was the winner of race two, finishing 3.243s ahead of Mariano del Castillo, and scored solid points with two fourth places in the other two races to remain third in the standings.

Nicholas Christodoulou, last of the title contenders, adding on to the podium he gained at?Aguascalientes. He’s now pulled away from Alex Garcia, who also made the podium twice at?Aguascalientes but struggled at Miguel E. Abad.

Australian Josh Smith cut Lucca Allen’s F4 South East Asia lead to 28 points on the second visit to Thailand’s Buriram circuit.

Allen won the first race after a close battle with poleman Shihab Al Habsi. The championship leader was ahead for most of the race, and although Al Habsi snatched the lead back at one point he ended up finishing behind Smith.

In the reversed-grid race two, Smith fought from ninth to take the win, moving up to second by the fourth lap before passing Muizz Musyaffa for the lead two laps later. Musyaffa, a star of the 2018 season, took his second podium of the year 0.344s behind.

Al Habsi went from sixth to first in the next reversed grid race, with Smith coming from ninth again to finish second. Elias Seppanen took his second podium of the weekend in third, ahead of Musyaffa and early leader Yash Aradhya. Alister Yoong and Allen were both penalised for exceeding track limits.

Allen, who did not finish the second race, ended the weekend with victory from pole. Smith beat Seppanen to second, moving into second in the standings as a result, with Al Habsi finishing sixth.

Results round-up [pole in bold, fastest lap in italics]

The post F4 round-up: Sulaiman extends NACAM lead, SEA star Smith wins at Buriram appeared first on Formula Scout.

Moises de la Vara extended his championship lead in the NACAM Formula 4 races supporting the Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix.

De la Vara, who drives for the Esteban Gutierrez-linked Scuderia Martiga and is in his third season of F4, finished fifth and first in the two races, with Prop Car Racing driver Igor Fraga winning the other, sharing the wins just as they did in the opening two races last month.

Fraga, who is the 2017 F3 Brasil Academy champion and also one of the finalists in the inaugural Formula 1 eSports competition, recovered from problems in qualifying to take pole, with?Alexandra Mohnhaupt alongside him on the front row and de la Vara’s team-mate Sergio da Silveira behind them in third. De la Vara qualified last, having been unable to set a time during the session.

The first race was close, with Fraga just holding off Mohnhaupt to take his second victory of the season. RPL Racing driver Santiago Lozano was third, ahead of Martiga pair da Silveira and de la Vera.

In the second race de la Vera was dominant, taking a remarkable nine second victory over his team-mate, with third placed Jose Manuel Vilalta a staggering 17 seconds further back.

After early contact with Mohnhaupt damaged his front wing, Fraga could only manage seventh, almost a minute back, and is now seven points behind de la Vara in the standings.

British F4 driver Manuel Sulaiman did not attend the meeting, having previously announced he would enter with the British JHR Developments team, and use his usual British F4 chassis.

Results round-up
Race 1 (13 laps)
1 Igor Fraga Prop Car Racing 26m28.785s
2 Alexandra Mohnhaupt MomoF4 +0.853s
3 Santiago Lozano RPL Racing +1.770s
4 Sergio da Silveira Scuderia Martiga EG +1.995s
5 Moises de la Vara Scuderia Martiga EG +4.118s
6 Jose Manuel Vilalta Prop Car Racing +5.220s
7 Michael Santos Ram Racing +5.532s
8 Manuel Cabrera RPL Racing +5.714s
9 Inigo Leon MomoF4 +6.632s
10 Emiliano Jauregui Ram Racing +7.190s
Pole: Fraga, 1m46.040s
Fastest Lap: Fraga, 1m46.790s

Race 2 (15 laps)
1 de la Vara 26m41.305s
2 da Silveira +9.456s
3 Vilalta +26.908s
4 Cabrera +41.613s
5 Santos +48.192s
6 Sergio Martinez Marepsi +52.526s
7 Fraga +54.784s
8 Daniel Forcadell easy-shop.com +54.988s
9 Jauregui +55.879s
10 Mariano Martinez RPL Racing +1m01.216s
FL: de la Vara, 1m46.098s

Championship Standings
1 de la Vara 78? ?2 Fraga 71? ?3 Mohnhaupt 51? ?4 Lozano 39? ?5 da Silveira 30? ?6 Santos 28? ?7 Vilalta 23? ?8 Jorge Herrera 20? ?9 Cabrera 16? ?10 Juan Jose Diaz 16

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