Spain’s Juan Cota delivered an error-free drive to win Saturday’s qualifying race for the FIA Motorsport Games’ F4 Cup as track limits violations led to penalties for almost half the field. 

By Seb Tirado

Cota qualified second, seven-thousandths of a second behind Sri Lanka’s Yevan David, and took the lead off the line. The Spaniard stayed in front for the rest of the race, only coming under pressure when Peru’s Andrés Cárdenas behind him set the fastest lap of the race in a bid to take the lead. 

Despite only taking victory by 0.455 seconds, Cota left little doubt that Spain could take its second medal in two years. If he wins Sunday, it will be his fifth consecutive win at the circuit after he swept the three-race Spanish F4 round at the venue last month.

Behind him, David and Cárdenas battled over the first few laps, with the Peruvian eventually making the lunge on David into the first corner and forcing the Sri Lankan wide. The pair continued wheel to wheel until lap four, when Cárdenas went through on the inside of turn four. 

Track limits violations substantially altered the results of both qualifying and the qualifying race, as they had done in the Formula Winter Series round at the venue in February.

Across all 21 cars in qualifying, 57 laps were deleted, with Malta’s Nicky Gauci, Portugal’s Francisco Macedo and Slovakia’s Matúš Ryba all shown the black flag and forced to end their sessions early for violating track limits five times.

After the race, 10 drivers received sanctions for track limits, ranging from five- to 25-second time penalties. Additionally, from the finishers, four drivers – Luxembourg’s Chester Kieffer in fifth, Portugal’s Francisco Macedo in 13th, Argentina’s Gino Trappa in 16th and Hong Kong’s Kaishun Liu in 17th – were disqualified from the race for violating track limits seven times. 

Qatar’s Bader Al Sulaiti, who crossed the line 21st, was also disqualified for exceeding track limits six times. 

Behind Cárdenas and David, the United Kingdom’s Reza Seewooruthun put in a clean, consistent drive from sixth on the grid. Having qualified third but received a three-place grid penalty for crossing the pit exit line in the first practice session, the 18-year-old took advantage of a stall for Australia’s Griffin Peebles and overtook an off-track Kieffer on lap two to finish fourth.

Israel’s Ariel Elkin was also given a three-place penalty for a similar incident in free practice two after he crossed the pit exit line heading into Aspar whilst on a lap. Qualifying ninth and starting 12th, the Israeli driver made up five places on the first lap and went on to take the chequered flag in seventh, 0.071s behind Ryba. Ryba and Elkin were promoted to fifth and sixth respectively after Kieffer was disqualified, with Japan’s Tosei Moriyama in seventh. 

After their stalls, Peebles and Greece’s Philippe-Armand Karras – who started seventh – fell to the back of the field, but they recovered several lost positions over the first few laps and finished 11th and 15th on the road. Penalties for their rivals put them eighth and 10th in the final classification, split by Czechia’s Max Karhan in ninth.

Sunday’s main event gets underway at 12:10 CET. Clocks in Europe will go back to standard time at 3:00. 

Header photo credit: SRO / Jakob Ebrey Photography