Another lights to flag victory from Joey Mawson saw him beat rival Mick Schumacher to the win after an ADAC Formula 4 race that featured no safety cars. The Australian thus moves further ahead in the championship with one race to go at Oschersleben.
On the grid, Mawson lined his car up facing Schumacher’s, in the knowledge the Prema Powerteam driver was quick off the line. It proved to be an inspired decision as the German had no answer into the first corner.
A clean start saw the 33 cars feed through the first lap with competitors battling for every position in the midfield. Behind the leaders, a strong start for Mike Ortmann saw him dive past Lirim Zendeli for fifth. Further back, Jannes Fittje was determined not to lose any ground, eventually holding on to ninth.
In the first few laps, Mawson extended his lead slightly as Thomas Preining pressured Schumacher for second before a small mistake saw the Austrian drop back.
With the top three spread out the battle for fourth saw Simo Laaksonen hold up a four car queue of Ortmann, Zendeli and Felipe Drugovich. As the race approached half distance, Ortmann made a dive on Laaksonen, taking fourth at turn one.
With ten minutes remaining, it soon became clear that Schumacher was closing on Mawson, who wasn’t showing the pace of the first half. Behind them, Ortmann broke away from Laaksonen, with the Finn finding himself under pressure from the other Mucke Motorsport car.
Despite the pressure, Mawson held on to take his fifth win of the season, beating Schumacher by under a second. With one minute left on the clock, Ortmann finally caught Preining, but a podium proved to be just beyond his reach.
Laaksonen held off Zendeli for fifth, while Drugovich fell back in the latter stages to beat Fittje to seventh. Rounding out the top ten was Kim-Luis Schramm and American Juan Manual Correa.
Race three takes place at 17:10 Local Time.
