Joel Eriksson managed to defend from Lando Norris to take the second win of the Spa-Francorchamps round of the ADAC Formula 4 Season. A rain soaked race saw Eriksson build up a large lead before a safety car destroyed his advantage.
The start had been delayed as Eriksson lined up alongside Ralf Aron. Despite the lack of grip, most cars made it safely through the first corner, but Guan Yu Zhou, who had started fifth, ran wide at Eau Rouge, struggled to get back onto the power in the wet conditions and fell out of the points as a result.
Robert Schwartzman had started two places behind Aron, but found himself in second place early on. The Estonian fought back but would have to give up the fight after running wide at Pouhon.
In running wide, Aron had also let Norris through. The two would catch and fight Schwartzman for second place in the early stages. However; this would only allow Eriksson to build a 5 second lead in his Motopark car.
The safety was triggered after nine minutes when Marylin Niederhauser spun at turn 13 leaving her car abandoned on the track. This would help Janneau Esmeijer the most. The HTP Junior driver had been running fifth but lost out early on to Marvin Dienst, Harrison Newey and Joey Mawson dropping him to eighth at the restart.
An already poor race got worse for Zhou as he crashed into Tim Zimmermann after La Source. The two cars were easily removed, while ahead, Newey managed to take the position from Dienst. The two would continue to battle for the remainder of the race as Newey eventually held off the German for fifth place.
The safety car had bunched the cars up. As a result, Eriksson found it hard to leave Norris behind. Unfortunetly for the MSA Formula racer, as few mistakes in the rain meant that he was unable to pressure Eriksson as much as he liked.
This meant that Eriksson held on to take the win with Norris 0.5 seconds behind. Schwartzman who claimed the fastest lap late on, would round out the podium as he held off Aron in fourth. Quite some distance back in fifth came Newey, Dienst, Mawson and Esmeijer. While Marek Bockmann and Mattia Drudi took the final points.
