Two new winners emerged at Circuit Paul Ricard in the form of Mattia Colnaghi and Maciej Gładysz as Keanu Al Azhari extended his championship lead.

By Juan Arroyo

Mattia Colnaghi finally got his breakthrough as he secured two wins from pole position in the Spanish F4 round at Circuit Paul Ricard.

The Italian driver is now second in the standings, 43 points behind his teammate and championship leader Keanu Al Azhari, who began the weekend with a 30th-place finish.

Maciej Gładysz in turn completed MP Motorsport’s sweep of the weekend by winning race three from pole position, in addition to finishing third in race two.

Nevertheless, Al Azhari has extended his championship lead with two second-places in race two and race three. The Emirati’s podium tally for the season is up to seven, having only missed it twice in three rounds.

Feeder Series breaks down some of the main talking points of the weekend.

Colnaghi’s brace

Colnaghi was the man of the weekend with two victories, two pole positions, and two fastest laps to accompany them.

In race one, the MP Motorsport driver pulled a gap of just over 6.5s by the chequered flag to take a comfortable maiden win in the series. Redemption, perhaps, after he was deemed at fault for the incident that brought an end to his and Lucas Fluxá’s race three at Jarama while fighting victory.

He also took a lights-to-flag victory in race two, maintaining the lead through a red flag caused by a pileup between of Matteo Quintarelli, Tim Gerhards, and Preston Lambert – the latter of whom’s car ended up lodged on top of the others’ in a bizarre incident.

“We know our pace on the used tyre is really good, so just domination and just pulled away from the guys behind,” Colnaghi said after winning race two.

“I got a bit of an advantage straight away in the first part, so it was red flagged. For a moment you think, ‘ah [expletive], it’s not [such a] great situation’ but then, with all the time we had, it was just time to refocus, reconcentrate, and put the hammer down once again and that’s just what I did.”

The Italian driver finished fifth in race three, maintaining his spot from qualifying.

He has scored points in the last six races, or every race in the last two rounds. Griffin Peebles has an equally long streak, only bested by Ernesto Rivera’s ongoing streak of seven points finishes since race three at Jarama.
Thanks will be in order to the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy, which enabled Colnaghi to race this season after he won a paid-for seat at MP in their annual shootout. As of now, he’s on track to achieve his goal of topping the rookie standings.

How did Adam Al Azhari perform on debut?

Keanu Al Azhari’s younger brother, Adam, will compete in the rest of the Spanish F4 season with Tecnicar Motorsport. Like Alexander Jacoby at Portimão, Al Azhari has only started racing now as he turned the required age of 15 to race in F4 on June 25.

The Emirati driver outqualified both of his teammates in 21st in both sessions, and went on to achieve a 14th-placed finish in race one. It is the team’s second-best result of the season after Gustaw Wiśniewski’s 13th place in race two at Portimão.

Al Azhari retired from race two following contact with Yevan David on the out-lap following a red flag, and retained his 21st-place from qualifying in race three.

Rodin’s form takes a dip

Rodin Motorsport went without a podium for the first time at an event this season. Their main source for points, Thomas Strauven, also finished a race outside the top 10 for the first time this season.

Outside of Strauven’s two podiums at Portimão, the last two weekends have been nothing to write home about for the British outfit: Strauven did not score a top-five finish at Circuit Paul Ricard; Peter Bouzinelos has not scored since race two at Jarama; and Preston Lambert is yet to score, in addition to suffering a broken hand from the race two pile-up. 

Strauven’s form over the three weekends has still been a notable improvement over Rodin’s 2023 form, however, and the track at which he secured his Formula Winter Series victory – Aragón – is up next on the calendar.

Egozi steps it up

James Egozi found himself on the podium for the first time in his career at Le Castellet, bringing an end to a dry spell of oh-so-close finishes to the podium in the first two rounds, but without being able to match the frontrunners over a full race distance.

The Red Bull junior took second, fifth, and third-placed finishes over the weekend, and so has quietly become the second-best Campos Racing driver in the standings. He now has an average finishing position of 5.8 – though he has retired twice this season, tied for the most in the Spanish F4 top 10.

It’ll be crucial for the American driver to maintain this form throughout the rest of the season as he looks to impress the RBJT. Already in his second F4 season, Egozi showed glimpses of what he could in an upper-midfield-at-best outfit in Italian F4, PHM Racing. He frequented the top 10 as PHM’s best driver, but he likely has much higher targets to achieve this season if we know Red Bull at all.

Where are Monlau’s points in the teams’ standings if Gerhards scored?

Monlau Motorsport fell victim to a unique rule in Spanish F4 at Le Castellet. Instead of having the top two finishers from each team contribute points, Spanish F4’s rules stipulate that the top two drivers in the standings from each team before each event be eligible to score points for the entire race weekend.

Monlau had not scored prior to Le Castellet. The Spanish team’s top two in the points were Lenny Ried and Rehan Hakim, whose best finishes were 14th and 23rd respectively. They went scoreless during the weekend, while Tim Gerhards, whose previous best was 24th, secured ninth place in race one and 10th in race three.

Gerhards’ top-10 finishes are the team’s first since last year’s season finale in Barcelona. While they could have lifted the team to ninth if Gerhards were ahead of Hakim or Reid before the round, the Dutch driver’s pre-round placement instead mean Monlau remains one of three teams, along with TC Racing and Tecnicar, with no points.

Where is the next round?

MotorLand Aragón will host Spanish F4 for the fourth round of the championship on July 26–28.

Théophile Naël took his and Saintéloc’s maiden win in the series at the Spanish circuit last year. However, Campos appeared to have the overall edge over the weekend, with Enzo Deligny and Christian Ho also claiming one win each.

Correction, 11 July 2024, 16:18 CEST: A previous version of this article incorrectly described the mechanism through which Spanish F4 teams with more than two cars score points. The affected section of the article has been adjusted to reflect the correct system.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency