Andres Cardenas of Peru and Campos Racing grabbed race one on Saturday. Then Griffin Peebles of Australia and MP Motorsport won race two on Sunday morning, before home driver Juan Cota led a DriveX 1-2 in the final race of the weekend.
Race 1
With more than half of the 38-strong grid making their first starts in car racing, it wasn’t hard to find a paddock wag confident that this would be a race of anarchy and safety cars.
But the youngsters disappointed the cynics, behaving immaculately to deliver a largely processional race entirely free of significant incidents.
One of the few overtaking moves was for the lead, however. Cardenas, who had lost out to Peebles at the start, produced it when he found his way past the Aussie on lap three. But with that done, the man who won at Jerez in Spanish F4 last year never looked back.
Behind him, the front of the field remained close but mostly static. Peebles led team-mate Maciej Gladysz all the way, and the Pole was followed home by the US Racing trio of Matheus Ferreira, Akshay Bohra and Gianmarco Pradel.
Pradel did head Bohra until just before the halfway mark, but their positional swap on lap eight was about the only other noteworthy move at the front of the field.
The only time the FWS brigade really did show some inexperience, in fact, was on its way to the grid. With so many drivers trying to squeeze in a practice start before departing the pitlane, a few ran out of time before the pit exit closed.
Among those to get stuck at the red light – and consequently be made to stay where they were for the race start – were the Campos pair of Ernesto Rivera and James Egozi. They had qualified fourth and sixth respectively, which left the front of the grid looking particularly sparse as the race got underway. Still, a valuable lesson was no doubt learned.
The same went for Cardenas, who admitted he had been lucky not to get caught up in the same traffic jam. “I was also waiting to do a practice start, but then I left the pitlane because of my water temperature – not because I realised the pits were closing!”
Race 2
The safety car did get some exercise this time around, with two appearances taking much of the time out of the half-hour race. To be fair to the inexperienced drivers, conditions were challenging. The Jerez track started out damp but then turned thoroughly wet as the race went on.
Again, though, it was procedural failings that caught the eye. Although there was an understandable absence of practice starts and nobody got stuck in the pitlane, two attempts were needed to get the race going. Each of the first two starts was aborted as Lorenzo Castillo failed to find his correct grid slot amid what might best be described as a fair amount of confusion.
At the third time of asking, however, the green light could be given. And it was relatively experienced Formula 4 racer Peebles who converted pole into the lead. Despite the pair of safety car interruptions for the beached cars of Filippo Fiorentino and Lucas Fluxa respectively, it was a lead he maintained to the end.
Despite the leaders opting for the relative safety of wet tyres, the worsening conditions helped make the race an interesting one. Cardenas jumped into second at the start but came under immediate pressure from Gladysz. He could only hold off the Pole until the third lap.
Source: Autosport