Spain’s Juan Cota built upon his win in Saturday’s qualifying race to take gold by 1.335 seconds in a dominant lights-to-flag victory on Sunday in the FIA Motorsport Games’ F4 Cup as track limits once again shook up the final result. 

By Seb Tirado

Starting from pole, Cota darted away as the lights went out whilst Peru’s Andrés Cárdenas alongside him had a poor getaway and immediately faced pressure from Sri Lanka’s Yevan David. But the pair had caught up to Cota by lap three and were battling with him when the safety car was called for the stranded car of Czechia’s Max Karhan.

The lap before, Karhan had hit the rear of Greece’s Phillipe-Armand Karras, with Karhan pulling off into the gravel at Turn 11 and Karras pitting with a broken rear wing. They joined Austria’s Oscar Wurz, who collided with Japan’s Tosei Moriyama on the opening lap, in retirement.

Cota nailed the safety car restart at the end of lap four and got the jump on Cárdenas and David. Whilst the Peruvian seemed to put pressure on the Spaniard in the middle stages of the 30-minute race, as in the qualifying race, he could not get past after 18 laps and had to settle for silver.

Track limits violations once again had a significant effect on the results of the race, even deciding who would earn the final medal. 

David was largely unchallenged on track for third place as his closest rival, the United Kingdom’s Reza Seewooruthun, struggled with his tyres. In the final minutes of the race, however, the Sri Lankan received 15 seconds of time penalties for exceeding track limits five times, dropping him to 11th in the final order and gifting Seewooruthun bronze.

With his victory, Cota took Spain’s fifth gold medal of the 2024 Games and Spain’s first in the F4 Cup after Bruno del Pino took bronze in 2022. Cárdenas took Peru’s only medal in this year’s Games and Seewooruthun gave the United Kingdom their second bronze medal of 2024, with their first coming in the Karting Endurance category.

Behind the medal winners, Israel’s Ariel Elkin and Slovakia’s Matúš Ryba ran nose to tail for the majority of the race behind Australia’s Griffin Peebles, who had a rapid climb up the order from eighth to fifth behind Seewooruthun. A five-second post-race time penalty for Ryba demoted the Slovakian to ninth behind Serbia’s Andrija Kostić. Peebles’ similar penalty, which originally dropped him from fourth to seventh, was later overturned.

Behind Moriyama in sixth came Luxembourg’s Chester Kieffer. After being disqualified from Saturday’s qualifying race and having to start the main race 17th, the 18-year-old made a remarkable charge in the opening laps, making up seven positions by the end of lap two. He then got past Kostić for ninth after the safety car and stayed there for the rest of the race, eventually being promoted two positions as those in front of him received penalties.

Elsewhere, Portugal’s Francisco Macedo recovered from his disqualification and 18th-place start to finish 10th after taking the chequered flag in 12th. Behind David, Norway’s Olav Vaa, Malta’s Nicky Gauci, Brazil’s Matheus Comparatto and Hong Kong’s Kaishun Liu rounded out the finishers.

For exceeding track limits too many times, Argentina’s Gino Trappa, Qatar’s Bader Al Sulaiti and Angola’s Lorenzo Campos were black-flagged during the race. A further five drivers – David, Ryba, Macedo, Comparatto and Liu – were given time penalties of between five and 15 seconds.

Cota’s gold medal was one of a games-high six earned by Spain, which also topped the overall medal count with 18. Germany and the United Kingdom had the second-most total medals with seven each.

Editor’s note, 28 October 2024, 22:45 CET: This article was updated after publication to reflect that the five-second post-race penalty for Australia’s Griffin Peebles was overturned. He was classified fourth.

Header photo credit: Artie C Photo