Racing Weekend landed last weekend at the Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo in Cheste with the celebration of the third round of the Spanish Formula 4, the Clio Cup and the Saxo 8V Cup.
The weekend began with a high heat, which provided for three Formula 4 races during the weekend, one on Saturday and another two on Sunday. The Bulgarian rookie Nikola Tsolov, within the Campos Racing team and under the tutelage of Fernando Alonso, came as a solid leader of the contest. And so he began to certify him in the first classification, where he achieved an impressive pole position with a time of 1’34”625, beating Frenchman Julien Gael of Drivex by more than half a second.
The first race He had a slight delay when he had to do a new formation lap because one of the cars had stalled. When the start was definitively given, Tsolov did not give any of his rivals an option and kept the lead firmly while behind him, in the second corner, the braking and evasive maneuvers followed one another, without any touches. From that position, Tsolov progressively began to open a gap over Gael and Portugal’s Manuel Espirito Santo, also from Campos.
The race stabilized from the first laps, and it was not until midway through that they regrouped in the lead. Álvaro García, from the local Formula de Campeones team, was spun due to a touch, which forced the safety car to come out for two laps. When relaunched, there was no chance of bothering Tsolov, who certified a new victory ahead, in Julien Gael’s goal. Nevertheless, the Frenchman was sanctioned for exceeding the track limits, for which Campos achieved a double with Espirito Santo in second place, and the Pole from MP Motorsport Timoteusz Kucharczyk third, which allowed him to avoid further opening the distance in the championship. The first Spaniard was Bruno del Pino, twelfth.
In the case of Renault Clio Cup The first race was held, with Álex Royo winning from pole position, with a nice fight three from behind that left Jordi Palomeras in second place and Alex Lahoz third, thanks to the penalties suffered by Nico Abella and Alejandro Schimpf. For its part, the Sax Cup 8V saw a beautiful duel between Fernando Navarrete and Jesús Rodríguez throughout the race. In fact, Rodríguez managed to overtake Navarrete midway through the race with a nice maneuver, but for exceeding the track limits he was sanctioned and finished twenty-fourth, while the veteran Navarrete achieved victory ahead of Álvaro Huertas and Alexander Villanueva. In Grid B of the Saxo, the victory went to José María Albal.
The Sunday the sun continued with intensity on the Valencian track, on the day in which five races were going to be held, two of them from the Formula 4. The day began precisely with the second classification of the single-seater category for the third race of F4, which saw the duel between two of the Campos Racing drivers. This time Nicola Tsolov had to settle for second position by 17 hundredths against the 1’34”053 of his Australian teammate Hugh Barter.
However, for the weekend’s short race, 18 minutes plus one lap, it was Tsolov who started on pole ahead of Julien Gael and Manuel Espirito Santo. Talking about dominance would be an understatement given the recital that the Bulgarian displayed in this second race, setting fastest lap after fastest lap and opening a gap with his pursuers, who were left fighting for the podium positions in a group of three formed by Gael, Espirito Santo and the Serb from Campos Racing, Filip Jenic.
The positions would remain unchanged in the first four places, and it would be the second victory of the weekend for Tsolov with a lead of 7’938 over Gael and Espirito Santo. Together with the pole position and the fastest lap, it meant a Grand Chelem for the Bulgarian. This time, the best Spaniard was the Formula of Champions driver, Max Mayer, who maintained the ninth starting position.
While waiting for the third F4 race, it was the Saxos and the Clios that took to the track, in that order. The final race of the Saxo 8V started with Fernando Navarrete in pole position and despite the pressure exerted by his pursuers in some stages of the race, the veteran driver did not make a single mistake to ratify his second victory of the weekend and put the achievement of the fun cup title well on track . For his part, the Clio had a very tight race in which the poleman, Alex Lahoz, had a bad start that was taken advantage of by Nico Abella to get the victory that had eluded him the day before.
At 2:45 p.m., the final Formula 4 race began with Campos Racing dominating the front row. Barter had a magnificent opportunity to face his teammate Tsolov, but he failed miserably from pole and was stuck, while the other competitors dodged him, without having to regret any accident. Going into the first corner, Tsolov found himself attacked by Kucharczyk on the inside, but ultimately held onto the lead. The one who made a spectacular start was the pilot from Kirghistan, Kirik Small, who was placed in third position from sixth on the grid.
With this there was a Campos in the lead, two MP Motorsport on the podium places, and another Campos, the Danish Georg Kelstrup in fourth position. It would be him and Small who gave emotion in the first positions, with a close fight throughout the race, while their predecessors gradually opened up a distance that allowed them to ride comfortably. Without incidents in the race, the positions remained stable, although at the back of the grid the drivers fought for up to six carswhich gave eye-catching to the test.
Thus, Nikola Tsolov achieved the triplet in Cheste, extending his leadership and looming as the absolute dominator of the category, without anyone seeming capable of embarrassing him. He leads 53 points to second in the championship. Formula 4 is now heading to Spa-Francorchamps for the appointment on July 8 and 9.