Russian driver Irina Sidorkova made her debut in the 2019 F4 Spanish Championship

On April 6-7, SMP Racing driver Irina Sidorkova spent her first racing weekend in a new discipline at the Navarra circuit in Spain.

Irina, the winner of the Russian Circuit Racing Series SMP RCRS in the National Junior class, switched to formula cars in 2019. She finished all three races of the F4 Spanish Championship first round without any racing incidents and problems with the car and also managed to get in top ten.

In the first qualifying session, Irina showed the 13th result among 16 drivers and finished the first race in the same place on Saturday, April 6. On Sunday, the Russian moved up to the 10th place in qualifying and in the next two races became the 11th and 9th, respectively.

"I think that my first weekend in the F4 Spanish Championship was pretty good," Irina Sidorkova shared. "I became much more confident with the car and started to understand what should be done and how to achieve it. Of course, there were many different moments that I took a note of for the future. This weekend I was able to try driving in mixed conditions, particularly on slick tyres along the wet track. Together with SMP Racing, we still have many tasks to work on, and I’m sure that we will correct many of my mistakes before the next round in France.”

“In general, we take a positive view on the first round,” Peter Aleshin, the director of the SMP Racing Junior program, commented. “Of course, this is the very beginning and we need to work on all the aspects of racing. But, from my point of view, Irina has enough desire and perseverance to make a progress.”

The second round of the F4 Spanish Championship will be held on April 27-28 at the Paul Ricard circuit in France.

Original press release from SMP Racing