There is fierce competition among the rookies near the top of the Spanish F4 leaderboard, but it was second-year driver Keanu Al Azhari who came out leading after the series’ visit to Portimão.

By Juan Arroyo

It took Al Azhari a little more than a year, but after strong winter stints in Spain and the Middle East, he is finally a Spanish F4 winner – two times over.

The Emirati became the first MP Motorsport driver to claim all pole positions in a weekend since Dilano van ’t Hoff did so at Jerez in 2021. He now leads the championship over teammate Lucas Fluxá by 28 points.

The weekend revealed how valuable previous experience is proving for Al Azhari, who has as many as eight rookies to contend with in the current top ten of the drivers’ standings. Fluxá could not maintain his race-winning form from Jarama and took three sixth places, but Thomas Strauven’s two podiums proved Rodin’s opening-round success was not a fluke.

As the races go on, several of those who might have looked weaker in the Formula Winter Series now seem to be getting better – and at a rapid pace.

Feeder Series analyses the key talking points from the weekend.

Have FWS results become obsolete?

After two rounds last year, only five rookies occupied spots in the top ten of the drivers’ standings. In 2024, that number has jumped to eight.

Fluxá, Strauven and Ernesto Rivera have been the highest scorers among an impressive rookie class, and all three have victories of their own. Fluxá’s Jarama performance specifically was eye-catching, with a pole position and two victories on his Spanish F4 debut. But that shouldn’t at all discredit the latter two, who are leading their team’s efforts.

Curiously, all three were outside the top ten by the end of the four-round Formula Winter Series – Strauven 12th, Fluxá 13th and Rivera 15th. Other rookies who struggled over the winter have also surged in performance, suggesting that they have found their stride and addressed their FWS rawness after pre-season testing.

René Lammers is one such example. The Dutchman only scored points on three out of 11 possible occasions in FWS, with a best finish of sixth, but he has already beat that with a fifth place in race one at Portimão. So too did Colnaghi, who had a best finish of seventh in two rounds of FWS but took second place and the rookie victory in race one.

In turn, more experienced drivers like Andrés Cárdenas and Peebles often alternated between first and second in FWS, while Al Azhari won the first race he entered after F4 UAE and claimed another podium on the same weekend. While Al Azhari leads the Spanish F4 points, Peebles is 12th and Cárdenas 14th.

The two rounds so far tell us that few second-year drivers seem able to fight for the title. The Emirati is the only one making an impression.

Can Rivera lead Campos in 2024?

At the season opener, a collision in the latter stages of race three between the top two drivers, Fluxá and Colnaghi, helped Rivera take the lead before the session was red-flagged. But that decision meant that outside of a 10-second penalty of Colnaghi, results were taken from the order two laps prior, so what could have been a first F4 win became a bittersweet second place.

Rivera and Campos Racing’s disappointment in pit lane at Jarama was evident – but the Mexican came back stronger to secure his first win in Spanish F4 the next time around. 

The Mexican started race two in third, behind Al Azhari and Griffin Peebles. He overtook each on separate safety car restarts to get the lead with just under eight minutes plus one lap remaining. Another safety car period kept the trio close together, but Rivera kept both MP cars behind him until the chequered flag. He became the first Mexican driver to win a Spanish F4 race since Javier González, who finished third in the standins in 2018.

Much of his weekend was spent inside the top five, fighting with fellow rookies. A fourth-place finish in race three was only enough for third on the rookie podium – which speaks to his and others’ progress since the Formula Winter Series.

He lost another podium opportunity in race one when he ran wide while trying to pass Mattia Colnaghi and dropped to sixth, but there’s no doubt he has potential for more.

How did Block and Jacoby do on debut?

GRS Team fielded two new drivers alongside Douwe Dedecker this round. Lia Block returned to GRS for a one-off appearance between F1 Academy rounds after making her open-wheel debut with the team in FWS earlier this year, while Alexander Jacoby stepped up to single-seaters after turning 15 at the end of last month. 

Jacoby outqualified Block in qualifying one, finishing 33rd while she took 35th. He also finished ahead of her in the races, coming 22nd and 19th while she had trouble-free runs to 28th and 25th. 

Block then took the upper hand for race three, outqualifying Jacoby by one place to take 31st on the grid and coming home 27th. Jacoby fell to the back of the pack after pitting with damage to his front wing on the second lap of the race.

Meanwhile, Dedecker claimed GRS’ first points of the year and their first since 2022 by climbing from 13th to ninth in race two.

Where is the next round?

Spanish F4’s next round is scheduled for 5–7 July at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, France. It will be the series’ first event at the circuit since 2020, when Tatuus’ previous-generation F4 car was still in use.

However, teams had already tested at the circuit in March in tandem with Italian F4. Results and lap times varied between sessions, making it difficult to determine a probable performance order based solely on the test, and it is thought that several of the best laps recorded may not have been legitimate.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency