Friday at the ACI Racing Weekend in Vallelunga concluded with qualifying for the Italian F4 Championship, the first qualifying sessions of the weekend. After two free practice sessions that had already highlighted the main contenders, the frontrunners confirmed their pace in qualifying.
US Racing’s Spanish-British driver Edward Robinson set the fastest lap overall with a 1:34.378, securing two pole positions for the weekend, for Race 2 and Race 3. According to the group rotation system, the fastest driver from the other session, David Cosma-Cristofor of Prema Racing, will instead start Race 1 from pole position.
The Romanian Prema Racing driver had already claimed a pole position at Vallelunga in 2025 and once again topped qualifying in Session 1 in 2026, posting a 1:34.523. His margin over Denmark’s David Walther of Maffi Racing was just 0.080 seconds.
Third place, with another narrow gap, went to Poland’s Alex Ruta of Van Amersfoort Racing, 0.154 off the top. Fourth was Alp Aksoy, the Turkish Prema Racing driver currently leading both the overall and Rookie standings, at 0.194.
At the end of a highly competitive Session 1, fifth place went to Arjen Kraling, leading a trio of US Racing drivers completed by Oleksandr Savinkov and Noah Killion. Their respective gaps to the leader were 0.229, 0.264 and 0.298.
Eighth was McLaren junior Christian Costoya of Prema Racing, representing Spain, with a gap of 0.303, ahead of Mercedes junior Kenzo Craigie of R-ace GP at 0.313.
Completing the top 10 was Swiss Trident Motorsport driver Florentin Hattemer at 0.363.
Then was the turn of the drivers assigned to Session 2 took to the circuit, where Edward Robinson delivered the fastest lap of the day. The Spaniard capped off an already impressive Friday after showing strong pace in free practice as well.
Second fastest was Finland’s Luka Sammalisto, just 0.189 behind. Third place went to Mercedes junior Andy Consani of R-ace GP at 0.267.
Ferrari Driver Academy member Niccolò Maccagnani (Prema Racing) finished fourth at 0.353. Another strong performance came from Artem Severiukhin of Jenzer Motorsport, competing in his first Italian F4 Championship round of the season, fifth at 0.355.
Behind him was Thomas Bearman of Van Amersfoort Racing, younger brother of Formula 1 driver Oliver Bearman, who won the Italian F4 title in 2021. The British youngster finished 0.368 off the pace. Seventh place went to Oscar Repetto of PHM Racing at 0.444.
Eighth was Indian driver Ary Bansal (US Racing) at 0.467. Behind him came Brazil’s Pedro Lima (Van Amersfoort Racing) at 0.508, while Trident driver Beco Bernoldi, son of former Formula 1 driver Enrique Bernoldi, completed the top 10 at 0.512.
The results remain provisional pending the completion of technical and sporting checks by the Stewards.
The next on-track action will be Race 1 tomorrow, Saturday, May 23. Groups B and C will take to the track first, opening the programme at 11:40 AM. Later on Saturday, at 6:00 PM, the Italian F.4 Championship will close the day with Race 2 (Groups A and B).
On Sunday, May 24, the single-seaters promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion will once again open and close the day: Race 3 (Groups A and C) at 9:00 AM, followed by the Final at 3:45 PM, featuring the best 36 drivers from the opening three races.
All races will last 25 minutes + 1 lap and will be broadcast live with Italian commentary on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228, Tivùsat channel 52 and acisport.tv), as well as streamed on ACI Sport TV’s YouTube and Facebook channels.
English-language live coverage will instead be available on the Italian F4 Championship YouTube and Facebook channels, in addition to the championship’s international broadcast network.
Admission to the circuit will be free upon registration through the official circuit website: https://ticket.vallelunga.it/it/racing/aci-racing-weekend-21-24-maggio-2026/
Edward Robinson: “It feels great. We saw we were strong yesterday and this morning. I put a good lap together and… pole position! It feels amazing, I just need to keep it cool tomorrow and on Sunday, get a good start… and go. Big thank you to the team.”
David Cosma-Cristofor: “Two times in a row on the same track is obviously a nice thing. I’m really happy about it. Last year the conditions were a bit different, I’m just really happy that I put the lap together. The target for this year is obviously to win the Championship, but at the moment I’m working on myself to improve what I need to improve, and it’s going really well.”