Jonny Edgar and Jak Crawford dominate race Sunday at the Red Bull Ring
The Van Amersfoort Racing duo of Jonny Edgar (16, England) and Jak Crawford (15, USA) were once again in a class of their own. The two team-mates shared the spoils of victory in the races on Sunday at the Red Bull Ring, so it now seems highly likely that the two of them will be going head-to-head as the title chase enters the home straight. Red Bull Motorsport advisor Helmut Marko was at the circuit to watch his juniors. Edgar took win number six of the season in the first race on Sunday morning, finishing ahead of Crawford and Joshua Dürksen (16, Germany, Van Amersfoort Racing). His team-mate then triumphed for the second time this year, beating off competition from Elias Seppänen (16, Finland, US Racing) and Victor Bernier (16, France, R-ace GP). Edgar meanwhile had to settle for seventh. In the run-up to the last two race weekends of the season at the Lausitzring and Oschersleben, Edgar is 28 points up on Crawford. Seppänen is in third place overall with an 18-point deficit on Crawford.
The first race of the day turned into a bravura performance by Edgar. He took full advantage of his pole position, just as he had done yesterday, pulling away from the field while taking Crawford with him. But Edgar's victory was never really under any threat. He was far too much in control to allow that to happen. "It was an excellent race," said Edgar. "The car was really strong." Not even a brief safety car deployment could put either of them off their stride. "On the restart, I was able to pull away, especially in the first two corners. And after that, I was able to manage the race from the front."
Behind Edgar and Crawford there was a battle royal for third place between Seppänen and Dürksen, which ultimately went Dürksen's way. Bernier was the beneficiary of a late penalty against Tim Tramnitz (15, Germany, US Racing), finishing fifth ahead of the two Russians Kirill Smal (15, R-ace GP) and Vladislav Lomko (15, US Racing). Mexico's Erick Zuniga (ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.) came eighth, just a few days after celebrating his 16th birthday, ahead of Roee Meyuhas (20, Israel, R-ace GP) and Oliver Bearman (15, England, US Racing).
The third race of the weekend, which started according to the reversed grid rule, turned out to be an exciting contest. Pole-sitter Zuniga did not get off to the best of starts, gradually dropping down the running order. Lomko moved up to the front, where he immediately came under pressure from Seppänen. Meanwhile, Crawford was making steady progress through the field: "Everyone was pretty aggressive, and it took me a while to get to third place."
When he eventually made it, the gap to the leading duo was quite big, but Crawford's pace was clearly superior. Within a few laps, he caught up and overtook first Lomko and then Seppänen, who had taken the lead meanwhile. Edgar was having a much harder time further back and was unable to reproduce the pace he had shown in the first two races. The English teenager lost the connection with the leading bunch and ultimately had to settle for seventh place, allowing Crawford to reduce the gap in the championship to 28 points: "I didn't get everything I set out to achieve this weekend," said the American with reference to his P3 finish on Saturday. "But there are still six races to go, and anything can happen."
Lomko lost out to Bernier in the fight for the remaining podium place but at least finished as Best Rookie in overall fourth. Tramnitz shook off the disappointment of his penalty in the morning race to finish fifth: "OK, I got the penalty," said the youngster from Hamburg. "I had to live with it and tried to make the best of things in the third race. I got off to a very good start, after which it got a bit trickier. But especially towards the middle of the race, I was involved in a lot of great fights. That was fun. It was one of the most exciting Formula 4 races I've been in."
Kirill Smal defended sixth place in the final phase of the race against Edgar. Completing the points-scoring positions were Bearman, Knopp and Zuniga. The next race weekend will take place in a fortnight at the Lausitzring - the track south of Berlin has stepped in as a replacement for Zandvoort in the Netherlands due to the heightened level of corona restrictions there. SPORT1 will show the ADAC Formula 4 races on TV; they can also be watched online at adac.de/motorsport, the ADAC Formula 4 Facebook page, SPORT1.de and on YouTube.com/ADAC.