The year began with raw speed and frayed edges. By the time the SNSB caravan rolled into Mosport for Round 5, the pattern was set: Colby Mann turned up and won on execution; Adam Miles made pole positions look routine; Bryan Kelly quietly banked points like dividends; and Karl Dronke’s calm efficiency kept him hovering in striking range. Those early Sundays—Okayama, Mid-Ohio, Watkins, Summit Point—established the grammar of this car: momentum over muscle, patience over panic, exits as currency. Mosport, “the cathedral of commitment,” made that explicit.

Then Mosport blew up the whiteboards. Miles did Miles things from pole—until contact with Mann sent both to the back and opened the door for a debutant. From ninth on the grid, Nick Mazza drove through the chaos and into the season’s first genuine plot twist, winning on his very first SNSB start while Kelly stretched a winless top-five streak into a points lead. That’s when the math got interesting: three drop weeks on the horizon meant every absence (Mann) and every bad day (Miles) would get discounted later, and suddenly consistency had teeth.

Imola tightened the screws. The place taxed self-control—track limits, 25x drive-throughs, incident discipline—and Miles answered with a lights-to-flag clinic that paired pace with restraint. The first applied drop week turned the table: Miles vaulted into the lead, Mann lurked three back, and Kelly—still perfect on top-tens—discovered that steadiness can be both a sword and a shield in a season that throws away your worst days. The Discord echoed what the lap charts showed: in this F4, learning curve and incident curve are the same curve.

Laguna Seca brought an old lion back to the watering hole. Jeffrey Decker parachuted in and set the pace, shrinking the front row and reminding everyone how narrow victory margins get when the big guns show. Behind Decker, the championship gears kept meshing: Miles did the points-leader thing, Mann hustled for third, and Kelly had the one wobble that proved he’s human. Meanwhile, Mazza carved through to fourth and looked less like a cameo and more like a trend.

Bathurst was Bathurst—no cautions, plenty of concrete, and a winner who never flinched. Mann converted the mountain into momentum, while Mazza and Bryan Perez traded elbows for the remaining steps on the box and a raft of new names—Shoemaker, Potter, Fotos, Birkhimer—signaled a livelier second half. Crucially, Miles didn’t take the green, and the title pendulum swung toward Mann with authority.

Barber reset the tone. Miles returned and stamped the night from flag to flag; Mann shadowed; Kelly turned steadiness into another podium. The subtext was the story: stints started to matter more than laps, a few drivers took tires by choice, and the league’s culture nudged toward “practice with purpose.” Even the broadcast got in on it when Pim Luth put down the mic and banked a tidy P7—proof that clean hands travel.

VIR acted like a lie detector. Mann won with economy, Berti and Girard proved the midfield had learned new tricks, and the strategy split over tires showed how far the paddock had come since spring. With two to go the ledger read like a coronation in pencil—Mann clear; Miles absent again; Kelly poised to profit—and the next stop, Suzuka West, promised an exam in traffic discipline.

Suzuka West delivered exactly that. On the half-length layout, track position and restraint at the chicane were the whole ballgame. Tim Berti aced it from the sharp end, Mann managed risk to bank a high-value second, and Kelly played the long game for third while Mike Bauers kept the title-podium conversation honest. It was the preview come true: starts, qualifying, and chicane rhythm over heroics.

And then Brands Hatch wrote a clean epilogue. No cautions, three lead changes, and Nick Mazza—calm hands, hot breath on his mirrors—held firm to win under relentless pressure. It fit the season’s trajectory: the league that started fast and fragile finished fast and composed. Bauers’ second was a statement about his arc, too. After real-world commitments blunted his Skippy form in prior campaigns, this season looked like a reconciliation—decision-making sharper, tire life better, race craft back at the front. That combination now travels between paddocks; he’s winning form in both worlds.

The championship ledger seals the themes we watched develop. Colby Mann is your inaugural champion, the benchmark who learned to make speed look simple and mistakes expensive for everyone around him. Bryan Kelly is the conscience of the year in second, proving that a high floor is a weapon in a drop-week economy and that “no drama” can still headline. Third is shared by Mike Bauers and Adam Miles, which feels exactly right: Bauers for the return to force and Miles for the pole-setting standard that made every Sunday he entered a different sport.

What changes next season now that the grid has real F4 miles? Less spiky error bars, more races won in the pit window, and a qualifying premium on short-lap venues that dwarf track space. Expect Mazza to arrive with full-time bite. Expect Bauers to nick one early and keep nicking them. Expect Kelly to finally cash the win his portfolio deserves. Expect Miles—if he runs deeper into the calendar—to turn the title fight into a knife edge. And expect the midfield, newly schooled in stint management, to make the front live harder for every point.

The inaugural season started with speed and not quite enough self-control. It ended with both. That’s how a league grows up.