The fourth round of the F1 Academy season will take place on Dutch soil with Martí, Lovinfosse and Cáceres driving the Mercantile Campos Racing-run cars
The F1 Academy has scheduled its fourth appointment of the season at Zandvoort, in the frame of an event of the renowned DTM championship, and the Dutch weekend also marks the halfway point of the campaign. Mercantile Campos Racing will enter their three cars for Nerea Martí, Lola Lovinfosse and Maite Cáceres with more podiums on their sights.
The series headed to Motorland Aragon for another collective testing ahead of Zandvoort. All the drivers competing under the Mercantile Campos Racing banner completed two strong days with Martí already scoring the second-fastest lap time on day 1. The following day, the Spaniard was still the fastest driver of Mercantile Campos Racing as she made it in the top-five both in the morning and afternoon sessions. Frenchwoman Lovinfosse was quite competitive as well and took 7th and 8th fastest in the timesheets. Uruguay’s Cáceres made another step forward in terms of performance and fought for a top-ten finish both days.
At the moment, Martí sits sixth in the drivers’ standings on 70 points and after claiming two second-place finishes in the all-female category so far. Lovinfosse, who also stepped onto the podium in Spielberg, currently is tenth in the standings. Mercantile Campos Racing is fifth in the teams’ standings.
Zandvoort is situated by the eponymous town and, as a result of the nearby dunes of North Holland’s North Sea, grip is usually very low due to sand. Despite the track has been extensively redesigned and resurfaced since its last Dutch Grand Prix in 1985, Zandvoort’s DNA remains unchanged thanks to bends such as Tarzan, which is probably the most famous corner. Besides, it is a pretty fast circuit with sweeping corners, 14 turns in total and a course now running for 4.2km.
Both free practice sessions will take place on Friday, but qualifying sessions are scheduled on Saturday at 08:00 and 08:20 this time. Race 1 is set to start at 17:25, with usual length of 30 minutes, on Saturday. On Sunday morning, Race 2 consisting of 20 minutes is scheduled at 08:40. Sunday’s Race 3, with its 30-minute format, will get underway at 17:25. All times CET.
Adrián Campos (Campos Racing Team Principal): “We approach the fourth round of the season in good spirits following a promising two-day test in Alcañiz. We struggled a bit in Barcelona during round 3 of the new series but our goal is to put ourselves on the podium, just like seen in Spielberg or Valencia. Zandvoort is a quite difficult circuit with narrow margins for mistakes, but we feel confident about our chances.”
Maite Cáceres (Mercantile Campos Racing Driver of F1 Academy): “After productive Motorland testing we had to historic Zandvoort circuit. I’m excited to be racing on such an historic track. From my point of view, my goal is to translate the positive aspects of testing into results. As always, we won’t have a lot of time during free practice testing, so it is going to be important to quickly learn the circuit, with its characteristic banked, fast corners. No doubts I will enjoy the experience and I’m looking forward to making my best there.”
