SMP F4 Safety Car crash unfolds

An extremely dangerous scenario unfolded in Race 4 of the opening round of the Russian SMP F4 series as the Safety Car driver drove onto the track and stopped as the field approached.

Although several cars were damaged as the field checked up or ran off the track to avoid the Safety Car, no one was injured in the hairy moment.

Russian SMP F4 race halted by dangerous Safety Car deployment incident

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The Russian SMP F4 series got underway at the Moscow Raceway this past weekend, with 18 young racers taking to the track.

The first three races of the weekend belonged to ITECO Racing as Ivan Pigaev, Timur Shagaliev and Maksim Orlov all claimed a win apiece.

However, Sunday’s final race, which saw Shagaliev starting from pole position, nearly ended in disaster.

The Safety Car driver headed out onto the track as the field was approaching and stopped with the car partially on the track.

The marshals were slow to let the drivers know about the hazard and they hit the brakes when they noticed it, with the entire field checking up.

Both the race leader and the second-placed car suffered damage, while Marko Markozov was extremely lucky as he appeared to be heading straight for the Safety Car before he managed to manoeuvre around it with his car off the track and in the gravel.

Un-Safety Car Deployed pic.twitter.com/z9jx7iQPCT

— Holiness (@F1BigData) May 17, 2026

British racer Abbi Pulling, the 2024 F1 Academy drivers’ champion, called for the series to launch an investigation into what led to that moment to avoid a repeat situation.

“So lucky this didn’t end worse,” she wrote on X.

“Scary things like this can happen still in modern racing, I hope this is investigated properly in how they let this situation unfold.

“Glad everyone is ok.”

ITECO Racing Team’s Ivan Pigaev won the opening race of the weekend to set himself up to lead the championship with 61 points at the end of the weekend’s four races. He is one point ahead of Vladimir Verkholantsev, who races for Formula K Russia.

SMP F4 is the Russian Championship in the Formula 4 class, which was re-launched in 2025 after a five-year break.

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