Rocco Coronel ends his wait with a Spanish F4 win from pole at Jerez
The Red Bull junior climbs to fourth in the standings, 38 points behind MP Motorsport stablemate Kasper Schormans with two rounds left
Rocco Coronel is a winner again in Spanish F4. The 15-year-old Red Bull junior took the third and final race at Jerez on Sunday from pole position, his first victory since he opened the season with two wins at Valencia in April, RacingNews365 reports.
The win lifts the MP Motorsport driver to fourth in the championship with two rounds to go. His fellow Dutchman Kasper Schormans, also with MP Motorsport, leaves Jerez still leading the standings.
Two red flags, a safety car finish and no pressure from behind
Coronel made a clean start from pole while Borys Łyżeń and Schormans fought over second place behind him. Halfway through the 30-minute race the red flag came out when Miki Blascos ended upside down in the gravel.
After the restart Coronel pulled away again, but the race was soon neutralised a second time: Jensen Burnett was pushed onto the grass and collided with Juste Mulder’s car. None of it seemed to bother the leader. With another safety car in the closing minutes, the field crossed the line behind it and Coronel took the win.
A red flag in qualifying cost him the first two races
The weekend did not start that well. According to RacingNews365, a badly timed red flag in qualifying left Coronel eighth on the grid, and at a track where overtaking is hard he stayed around there in the first two races. The official F4 Spain standings give him four points from race one and two from race two.
Sunday’s second qualifying session set the grid for race three, and that one went his way: pole position, and a far better starting point for his first win in months.
From championship leader to fourth, and back in the fight
Coronel’s season has come in two halves. He opened it with a double win at Valencia and still led the championship after Portimão, but Noah Monteiro took over at MotorLand Aragón and Schormans moved to the front at Jarama in August. Until Sunday, Coronel had not won since April.
The standings after Jerez, as reported by RacingNews365, now look like this: Schormans 182 points, Monteiro 176, Łyżeń 161, Coronel 144 and Andrej Petrović 138. The official F4 Spain table had not yet been updated with race three when this article was published. Two rounds, and six races, remain: Navarra from 9 to 11 October and the finale at Montmeló from 6 to 8 November.
Coronel, who turns 16 on 23 October, is in his first full season of single-seaters. He joined the Red Bull Junior Team in 2024 and won the Ginetta Junior title in 2025 before moving to F4. Read more about his background, his karting career and his father Tom Coronel in our Rocco Coronel driver profile.
Our arithmetic: 38 points is a lot, but not with six races left
A race win is worth 25 points, so on paper Coronel is about a win and a half behind Schormans with six races to go. The bigger problem is that there are three drivers between him and the lead, and he needs all of them to drop points. What Sunday does prove is that the pace from April is still there when he starts at the front. At Jerez, qualifying decided his weekend: eighth on the grid meant six points, pole meant a win. If he gets two clean qualifying sessions at Navarra, this becomes a four-way title fight with two Dutch drivers in it.
Can Coronel still win the Spanish F4 title from 38 points back, or is this now Schormans against Monteiro? Tell us in the comments.
Navarra is next on 9 to 11 October
The Spanish F4 Championship returns at Navarra from 9 to 11 October, with the season finale at Montmeló a month later. The full standings are on the official F4 Spain website.
