A red flag in the final six minutes interrupted the flow of ADAC Formula 4 qualifying, with Kim-Luis Schramm putting in a final lap to take pole position by two hundredths of a second. He led a US Racing 1-2-3-4 in a spectacular day for the Kerpen-based team at the Laustizring.
The session begun with Felipe Drugovich setting the early pace, with the Brazilian driver swapping times with Marcus Armstrong. The Kiwi driver had been nowhere in practice, but needed to up his game going into qualifying with a strong weekend a requirement for the Prema Powerteam driver.
Armstrong’s teammate Juan Manuel Correa, took the advantage during the middle third, with Juri Vips making it a temporary 1-2-3, while the US Racing drivers stayed in the pits until the mid-point of the session.
With much of the field back in the pits, the US Racing quartet finally showed their hand. Julian Hanses was the first to beat the Prema’s, with Schramm and Fabio Scherer further dropping the benchmark until the team locked out the top four.
The session climax was cut short though as a red flag stopped proceedings with six minutes to run due to an off from Tom Beckhauser.
Qualifying was continued, at the expense of the Friday schedule and Drugovich, who had been on a quick lap when the stoppage was called. He sat in eleventh place prior to this, only jumping to eighth during a final run.
The US Racing squad maintain their 1-2-3-4 order, though Scherer would not keep his pole as Schramm put in a final effort to set a 1min 22.462, only 0.024 seconds ahead of Nicklas Nielsen. This ultimately pushed Scherer to third ahead of Hanses.
A late lap from Kami Laliberte put him in fifth, best of the rest, ahead of Armstrong and Correa. After topping practice, Drugovich will be disappointed with eighth ahead of teammate Frederik Vesti and Jonathan Aberdein.
Championship leader Vips eventually fell to twelfth.
