The round of Imola launched Lance Stroll (Prema Power Team) on top of the charts of the Italian F.4 Championship powered by Abarth. Two victories and a second place earned in the second round of the Championship promoted the Canadian on top of the classification taking over from the Milanese driver Andrea Russo (Diegi Motorsport), who experienced a troubled weekend marked by several contacts.
One of the highs on the circuit of Imola was the growing competitiveness of drivers that were more and more at ease at the wheel of the Tatuus T014 powered by the Abarth F414T unit, that proved to be safe and reliable. Last weekend has been another serious test bench due to the heat the 22 drivers put on track in the three races. In one of such occasions Russo had the worse of it: a contact with Brandon Maisano (Prema Power Team) pushed the Italian driver out of race 2's podium fight, taking him away from the classification lead that had already gone Stroll's ways in the previous race. The episode was later on analyzed by Stewards that handed Maisano a 5 place grid penalty in race 3.
Keeping at bay some of the drivers is one of the duties of the organizers of the rounds of Formula 4.
The presence of the Aci Csai Federal School, represented by its Director Raffaele Giammaria, by its Coordinator Cristiano Del Balzo and the Instructor Andrea Piccini plays a major role in this, analyzing the young drivers throughout the weekend. The headquarters for this is the new WSK Promotion hospitality, the most recent space set up by the Championship's promoter. The new mobile structure, an elevated room housing offices has a wide round at level one where all daily meetings with drivers are held.
In Imola, Leonardo Pulcini (Euronova by Fortec) has been very good implementing the advice of instructors as he secured a third and two fourth places that strengthened his third place in the classification at 66 points, just two short of Russo that is standing at 68. Both drivers need quite a bit of comeback as Stroll up in front has 119 points. With 5 rounds left to go for a total of 15 races, everyone is aiming to fill the gap to the lead starting from Mattia Drudi (F&M). The driver from Rimini has been a reference pint in Imola's F.4 paddock, after the fair win of race 2. Unfortunately in Race 3 he could not make the most out of his front row start as he stalled at the start but then Drudi managed to join the race showing his potential with the fastest lap of the race. His chance to counter charge is set for Mugello on the weekend of 13 July.
Italian F.4 highlighted three other names with a crescendo of performance: the Swiss Alain Valente (Jenzer Motorsport) who is fourth in the standings and put in three solid races last weekend and Matteo Cairoli (Antonelli Motorsport), who in Imola showed to be able to aim higher than the second place obtained in Race-3. The Russian driver Ivan Matveev (SMP Racing) managed to get the sixth place of the classification - equal on points with Drudi - thanks to the podium in race 3.
In the Italian F.4 Trophy powered by Abarth the lead is currently held by Brandon Maisano. Behind him, Keith Camilleri (Malta Formula Racing) showed a good progress in Imola. He pushed hard in race 1 crossing the finish line right behind Pulcini. Then he kept pushing despite harvesting less than expected though. Camilleri keeps his run in the charts behind Maisano, while his closest rival for the second place is Bahrain's Ali Al Khalifa (Jenzer Motorsport) who is improving his race performance all the time.