Verschoor First Winner of 2016

The twenty drivers of the F4 NEZ Championship certified by FIA 2016’s season arrived on Saturday in the 2016 FORMULA 1 RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX support paddock, fully energised for the first race of the season scheduled at 16:30.

“When the mechanics fitted my seat belt, I started to feel the stress going up, mixed with the adrenaline. I tried to focus on the race, and left to the track”, commented Alexander Maslennikov.

As the cars got to the grid, the tension in the young drivers eyes was clear. When the lights went off, Richard Verschoor the pole sitter took a very back start and dropped down the field, while his Dutch teammate Jarno Opmeer was racing wheel-to-wheel with Russian Alexey Korneev who won Race 3 in Sochi last year. Unfortunately, Alexey Korneev was forced out of the track and had to retire in the fifth corner of Sochi Autodrom.

The first lap was quite an eventful one as Artem Petrov and Gleb Zotov were involved in a accident but re-joined the track and managed to finish the race in P10 and P11, Tuomas Tujula, Zakhar Slutskii, Rasmus Markkanen and Tuomas Haapalainen had to retire after a huge imbroglio, forcing the safety car to enter onto the track. After three laps, the safety car came in and the race restarted in style. Richard Verschoor reclaimed his leader position from Opmeer while behind him the battle for P3 was raging, with Roope Markkanen chasing down a brave Nikita Sitnikov, but the Finn got the upper hand and was the one finishing on the third step of the podium.

Alex Vartanyan was surely a man on a mission during this first race as the fifteen years old driver showed some bold moves, going up from P11 to P4, while Kroes, Kauppi and Lloveras were trading position behind him.

Second-year driver Alexander Maslennikov had the most impressive number of positions gained as he left P19 and ended P9 by the end of the 25 minutes + 1lap race.

Vladimir Tziortzis who missed the first Free Practice and managed to complete five laps only of the qualifying session, had to start from the pitlane and passed the chequered flag P14.

So it’s a maiden win for the KNAF Talent First driver Richard Verschoor who’ll be aiming for a repeat today.

“I am very happy with how the race went as my start was pretty bad. The safety car helped me a lot. It was a good fight with Jarno and a race full of action, he was always so close to me that I did not have room for any mistake. I will celebrate tonight and will try to make it a double tomorrow,” commented Richard Verschoor.

“I had a really good start as the drivers behind me went a bit ballistic. I had a big gap after five corners, but when the safety car came in, I lost my advantage. When the safety car came in, Richard overtook me thanks to the slipstream. I signed the fastest lap of the race, that’s awesome. It was my first single-seater race and I finished second. I think it’s not too bad! However there’s still room for improvement,” commented Jarno Opmeer

“I had quite a good start but at the first corner everything changed, drivers crashed in front of me and I had to avoid them, therefore I dropped to P6. But luckily for me, the safety car came on track and after it came in, I had a very good speed. I then knew that I could hope for a podium. When I got Nikita Sitnikov on sight, I was determined to take his P3 position and we had very good racing, overtaking each other four times during the race. I finally managed to keep my place and scored my first podium in the F4 car. It is just amazing, I don’t even realize it yet. I clearly didn’t even dream about a podium so I am super happy. Tomorrow I will start P3 and I will aim for the win,” commented Roope Markkanen.

The next race is scheduled today at 12:30 local time and Dutch Jarno Opmeer will be starting from the pole.

 

Results Race 1

P1 R. Verschoor

P2 J. Opmeer

P3 Roope Markkanen

P4 A. Vartanyan

P5 N. Sitnikov

P6 D. Kroes

P7 H. Kauppi

P8 X. Lloveras

P9 A. Maslennikov

P10 A. Petrov

P11 G. Zotov

P12 A. Slutskii

P13 R. Lebedev

P14 V. Tziortzis

 

Not Classified

J. Valtanen

R. Markkanen

T. Haapalainen

T. Tujula

A. Korneev

Z. SLutskii

 

Fastest Lap

J. Opmeer 2:10.435