Red Bull Junior Joshua Dürksen set the fastest time in the ADAC Formula 4’s first practice session at the Red Bull Ring. The driver from ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg eV covered the Austrian circuit in a time of 1:45.538 minutes and was 0.164 seconds faster than the American Jak Crawford. Dürksen managed to improve his performance considerably on his last lap and bumped his Van Amersfoort team-mate and championship leader Jonny Edgar down the timesheets into third place. Edgar was half-a-second adrift of best time.

Initially, the juniors from the ADAC High-Speed Academy had to get accustomed to unusually cool conditions at the famous Austrian circuit, but times tumbled as the session progressed. Coming home just behind him, Edgar’s biggest rival for the title Elias Seppänen from US Racing took fourth place from ADAC Foundation Sports protégé Tim Tramnitz from Hamburg and Oliver Bearman, who also competes for the Kerpen-based outfit. Czech driver Josef Knopp finished seventh in front of the Israeli Roee Meyuhas (R-ace GP), who is making his debut in the ADAC Formula 4 this weekend. Victor Bernier and Kirill Smal completed the Top Ten.

The two qualifying sessions are scheduled to take place this Friday afternoon after the second practice session and will decide the starting grid for the first two races of the weekend. Race 1 will get underway on Saturday morning at 11.40 CEST while the other two races will be on Sunday (09.55 and 16.05 CEST).