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Gino Trappa from Jenzer Motorsport secured his first-ever pole position in the morning qualifying and carried that speed into the first race of the weekend in the F4 Central European Zone at the Red Bull Ring. The race ended prematurely, with four minutes remaining, due to a crash on the start-finish straight.
Jenzer Motorsport teammates Gino Trappa and Max Karhan started from the front row, with David Walther from Maffi Racing and William Karlsson from Renauer Motorsport lining up behind them.
Trappa shot into the first corner, while Karhan struggled to get away. Walther attempted to overtake him on the outside of Turn 1 and then squeezed Karhan on the following straight, causing the Czech driver to lose several positions.
Walther and Karlsson fought hard for second place, with even a bit of contact between them. Behind them were Javier Herrera and Karhan. Behind them was their team mate Nicolas Cortes, who took advantage of the battles behind him to build a gap to Hady Mimassi, Mathilda Paatz, Simon Schranz, Benett Gáspár and David Gorčica — all fighting intensely for the points positions.
Meanwhile at the front, Trappa controlled the pace, lapping faster than the rest of the field and creating a comfortable gap. David Walther managed to stay in second place, while Karlsson dropped back by more than a second. Herrera was driving defensively, with Karhan trying to find a way past.
In the second half of the race, Walther began setting the fastest laps and gradually closed the gap to Trappa. At the same time, Karlsson had to defend his third place from the trio of Jenzer Motorsport drivers: Herrera, Karhan and Cortes.
With five minutes to go, Walther was less than a second behind Trappa and preparing to launch an attack. However, the race was red-flagged after a dramatic crash. Herrera ended up upside down on the start-finish straight just before Turn 1. Moments earlier, Karhan had passed Herrera for fourth, and then Cortes made a move that resulted in wheel contact with Herrera, who ended upside down, but fortunately, he was uninjured.
The race was not resumed, and with four minutes remaining, the final result was taken from the previous lap. Gino Trappa was declared the winner of the opening race at the Red Bull Ring, ahead of David Walther and William Karlsson. Karhan finished fourth, just ahead of teammate Cortes in fifth, with Hady Mimassi from Renauer Motorsport in sixth.
As the results were taken from the lap before the red flag, Herrera was also classified but dropped to seventh due to a four-second penalty for exceeding track limits.
Mathilda Paatz from Mathilda Racing finished eighth and won the Women’s Trophy. Benett Gáspár from Zengő Motorsport was ninth, and the top ten was rounded out by Simon Schranz from Renauer Motorsport.
UPDATE1: Herrera and Cortes eventually both received 20 seconds penalty for their incident and dropped out of the points positions. Mimassi moved up to fifth position with Paatz, Gáspár and Schranz sixth, seventh and eight. Andreas Lo Bue from Maffi Racing moved up to ninth and scored his first points in F4 CEZ. His team mate Nikolaj Dyrved rounded top 10.
UPDATE2: David Walther received 5 seconds penalty in the late afternoon for pushing Max Karhan out of the track. Walther dropped from second to third place behind Karlsson.
