ANTON SEEKS TO BOOST ROOKIE TITLE BID MIDWAY INTO F4 SEA SEASON

July 5, 2025 Sports

Inigo Anton is in Thailand now as he seeks to extend his 35-point lead for the Rookie of the Year (RoY) plum even as he tries to stave off an Indian’s challenge for third place in the championship series of the F4 Southeast Asia at the Bangsaen Street Circuit in Mueang Chonburi. Anton, who turned 21 earlier this week, has 138 points and a 35-point lead in the RoY race built on two first-place finishes and a saddening disqualification in the first leg in Sepang, Malaysia, and one first place and a couple of runners-up in the second leg in Buriram, Thailand last month. Midway into the five-leg races, Anton is carrying a 35-point advantage on fellow Black Arts Racing Team mate Ben Anh Nguyen of Vietnam.

“The plan is to win,” said Anton through his mother Karen, who, as early as Wednesday, was already in Thailand after celebrating with family his 21st birthday at the Foggy Mountain Cookhouse in Baguio. He added: “(I) wish good health for (our) family and safety during the race.” But the biggest challenge for the University of Baguio student is newcomer Ayrton Asdathorn, who took two of the top podiums and a silver finish in the last race to take a leg-best 86 points that saw him climb to third spot. Overall, the Thai Toyota factory driver had two podium finishes (3rd and 2nd) and a fourth-place result to zoom to 56 points and sixth spot, just a point off Chinese Wang Zhongwei.

Viet-English Alex Sawer hopes to sweep the weekend races and continue his dominance as he already won pole position in the last two legs with a perfect 188 points. Sawer’s Evans GP partner Seth Gilmore of Australia remains at second spot with 108 points on a 2-6-3 finishes in the first leg and 2-3-3 finishes in the last. Anton is third with 85 points, just a point off Rishon Rajeev, who had a disappointing leg 2 result with a 6-5-6 finish to show. While British-Vietnamese Alex Sawer of Evans GP is totally dominating the race—where the race tracks in Malaysia and Thailand are his private playground—Inigo is putting up a good fight, despite his relative inexperience. Racers are given points classification for their placement, with a fourth placer getting 15, 12 for fifth, 10 for sixth, and so on until the last or 12th place finisher who gets a point.

That is after a horrendous disqualification in the second race of the inaugural run last May in Malaysia. Inigo could have earned another 22 points instead of the zero and a comfortable third spot point of 107. Mom (and manager) Karen née Navarrete said that Inigo finished with less fuel than the required one liter for possible test after. She said that it was a mistake of his team that he went beyond the one-liter minimum and got zero points despite placing second to Sawer.

Pigeon Lobien/ABN