Having taken the lead at the start, Joey Mawson went on to dominate the first race of the weekend at the Lausitzring in the ADAC Formula 4 championship. The result means that he closes to within 10 points of Joel Eriksson, who didn’t race after being disqualified from the session for overtaking under red flags in qualifying.
Eriksson, as well as three other drivers all sat out the weekend resulting in 30 cars starting the race. The lowest turnout for any ADAC F4 race this year. However; the decreased grid size did reduce the chance of accidents, resulting in only one safety car later on, as Toni Wolf hit the wall on the exit of the last corner.
The race started with Marvin Dienst on pole, but a poor start saw him drop to third as Mawson moved into first from Janneau Esmeijer. The Dutch driver breifly took the lead before Mawson fought his way back through after a mistake.
The mistake also meant Dienst lost momentum and a position to Tim Zimmermann. This would only last a few laps as a mistake for Zimmermann pushed him back to sixth. Having made his way through the order, Robert Schwartzmann was also on the back of the leaders and overtook Dienst for third with 20 minutes remaining.
Incidents at the back saw Arlind Hoti launch his car over Moritz Muller-Crepon, breaking his front wing and seeing the Jenzer Motorsport driver join Michael Waldherr on the sidelines.
By now, Mawson lead by 4.1 seconds over Esmeijer, who was holding up the five cars behind. The HTP Junior Team cars of Esmeijer and Dienst would lose second and fourth respectively to the Mucke Motorsport cars of Schwartzman and Mike Ortmann.
Esmeijer would later collide with Zimmermann, ruining both of their chances of solid points with the safety car being released for Wolf soon after.
At the restart, with 4 minutes to run, Esmeijer continued to tumble down the order as David Beckmann put pressure on Ortmann for fourth after Dienst took the position back. Mawson tried to extend his lead again, doing just enough to take the flag from Schwartzmann.
Dienst would be third with Ortmann the best placed rookie ahead of Beckmann and Jannes Fittje. With Eriksson not racing, it was a good opportunity for Mawson and Dienst to catch up in the drivers championship.