The third round of the inaugural F4 Spanish Championship visited neighbouring Portugal last weekend (8-10 July) at the 4.684km track of Portimao. The beautiful landscape of Algarve was the scenery awaiting the drivers ahead of a hard weekend of competition under a dazzling sun, with air temperatures going up to 38 degrees.

The two morning practices on Friday saw Drivex protégé Vartanyan topping the opener with a 1.50,163 and a sick Richard Verschoor fastest in the second on 1.50,370.

The afternoon qualifying session was always going to be very hard with a track temperature of 57 degrees, making management of the Hankook tyres essential. Verschoor set the early pace with a laptime of 1.50,890 which he soon improved into a 1.50,725 which was enough for pole.

Behind him the fight for P2 was raging, with Drivex racer Alex Vartanyan looking odds on for a front row start when Finn Juho Valtanen set a late 1.51,114 which promoted him to second.

The weekend’s first race on Saturday started under a stifling sun with Verschoor making a clean start to pull a 1.3s gap to Valtanen at the end of lap one. The drama came few laps after when Nikita Volegov and Tuomas Haapalainen retired due to contact, bringing out the safety car.

As the race resumed, Valtanen did not manage to catch Verschoor who charged away again, but by the end of the race Valtanen had found more pace to grab the fastest lap.

At the end of the contest, Juho Valtanen said, “Portimao is my favourite circuit, I drove here last year during the Winter Junior Challenge by Koiranen GP. I am very happy with my race today and hope for better tomorrow”

Race winner Verschoor added, “I pushed from the start to the end, and finally we are here again on the top step of the podium. So I am very satisfied of course!”

The last day of competition in Portimao, Portugal started early so that the drivers could enjoy lower temperatures than what they experienced on Saturday in the first qualifying.

In the second qualifying session it was Tuomas Tujula topping the early classification, but he was quickly suffled down as Alexander Vartanyan from Drivex started setting purple sectors. After a fierce battle between both Russians, Valtanen and Verschoor, it was fifteen years old Vartanyan who nailed down the race three pole position, the second for the Moscow native this year.

“It is very satisfying to sign your best lap on the last pushing lap,” he said. “But now I need a good start to have an even nicer day than what I had until now. I would like to thank the team for the great job they are doing!”

Race two started at midday with Richard Verschoor on pole position while Juho Valtanen, Vartanyan and Tujula lined up behind.

As the lights went off, Xavi Lloveras stalled on the grid, which meant the Spaniard had to put extra efforts to catch the pack. At the end of the first tour, Richard Verschoor was still leading with Juho Valtanen, Alexander Vartanyan and Sebastian Fernandez behind him.

A few laps later, Vartanyan passed Valtanen and was able to hold onto P2 for the rest of the race behind the impressive Red Bull Junior driver Richard Verschoor who scored his second victory of the weekend.

The third and final race of the weekend closed the Portuguese round with Alexander Vartanyan in pole position, in front of championship leader Verschoor and Juho Valtanen.

The young Russian made a bad start and got overtaken by the Dutchman, while Nikita Volegov went up to third before dropping dramatically to seventh at the end of the race. Lloveras had a very good start, jumping from P7 to P4, but was later passed by the Finns Tuomas Tujula and Haapalainen.

The race ended with Richard Verschoor signing his second hat-trick weekend in a row and extending his lead in the F4 Spanish Championship Drivers Championship.

Now the summer break is underway, and the competition will resume on September 25 in Valencia.