Perfect performance at the Misano World Circuit for British driver Freddie Slater, who dominates the first round of the Italian F.4 Championship with 3 victories. Slater, representing Prema Racing, already Championship winner this year in the F4 UAE, began the weekend in the best possible way, securing all three pole positions in qualifying. He then flawlessly converted this result into 3 wins during the weekend races, pulling away from the start and making himself unreachable for the 36 drivers behind him. In addition, two out of three fastest lap during the race (in Race 1 was Stolcermanis). The 75 points collected in round 1 make his intentions for the season very clear. Following him consistently on the podium throughout the weekend was Prema's Mercedes junior driver, Alex Powell, who himself was rewarded with a perfect performance in qualifying, earning him front-row starts for all 3 races. The American driver's interpretation of the first race weekend was excellent, placing him now second in the overall standings, as well as first in the Rookie class with three wins. In the first two races of the weekend, Prema Racing's two drivers shared the podium with US Racing's drivers (Gianmarco Pradel in Race 1 and Akshay Bohra in Race 2). In Race 3, the Grisignano di Zocco based Team completed the feat with a triple podium finish. It was indeed the Japanese Alpine Academy driver, Kean Nakamura Berta, who worked his magic in the closing stages with a spectacular overtake on his countryman Hiyu Yamakoshi of Van Amersfoort Racing.
Yamakoshi, in turn, delivered an exceptional race, holding onto P3 for a long time and resisting attacks from behind. Then he eventually lost his position in the closing stages, following a Safety Car restart that regrouped the field, thus replicating his Race 2 result with fourth place, earning him valuable points and third position in the drivers' standings. Once again, the battle involving all the drivers in the points zone was highly spectacular, especially the one between Prema Racing's Rashid Al Dhaheri and US Racing's Australian driver Gianmarco Pradel, who exchanged positions multiple times. However, Al Dhaheri in the end prevailed and passed fifth under the checkered flag, head of his rival. Seventh place went to Reno Francot, the fast Dutchman of Jenzer Motorsport, who was a standout performer at Misano throughout the 3 weekend races.
Eighth place was claimed by Italian driver Davide Larini of Team PHM AIX Racing, who redeemed himself from facing misfortunes during the first two races, despite his excellent qualifying performance. Larini ended the weekend on a high note by scoring his first points in the Championship.
Race 3 also saw a strong performance from Indian Prema Racing driver Dion Gowda, who finished ninth ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing's Swedish driver Gustav Jonsson. Tomass Stolcermanis of Prema Racing, who had crossed the finish line in ninth place, received a penalty of five seconds for an incident with Enzo Yeh (R-ace GP) and slipped to P14. Consequently, Stolcermanis also lost third place in the Rookie classification for Race 3, which then went to Andrej Petrovic. The Serbian driver of PHM AIX Racing, 12th overall in the race, thus matched his class P3 obtained yesterday in Race 2.
Penalties were also assigned to Emanuele Olivieri (AKM Motorsport), who received a 10-second penalty for an incident with Yeh, Andrija Kostic (Van Amersfoort Racing) will lose 4 grid positions in the next race due to an incident with Kai Daryanani (CRAM Motorsport), Maxim Rehm (US Racing) received a 10-second penalty for an incident with Ethan Ischer (Jenzer Motorsport), and Stack Everett was given a 5-second penalty for overtaking under double yellow flag conditions.
The standings after the first round see Slater in first position with 75 points, followed by Powell with 54 and Yamakoshi with 32 points. Complete standings are available on the website www.acisport.it/F4.
The next appointment for the Italian F.4 Championship will be at Imola, on the weekend of June 2, for the second of the seven rounds of the season. Then it will be Vallelunga (June 15-16), Mugello (July 13-14), Le Castellet (July 20-21), Barcelona (September 28-29), and Monza (October 26-27).
Freddie Slater: “it’s a mega weekend in the end. We just put it all together, the Prema Team did an amazing job. We went to bed last night, we all saw we need three cars on the podium, and we did exactly that. Prema has been amazing, my engineer and my teammates did a great job. I couldn’t have done it without any of them. We are all pushing to make the Team as best as they can be. We are delivering at the moment, and we just got to keep it up. It’s not about taking risks, it’s about building the points, no silly mistakes. I made a good start, not too risky. I made some good choices as well, I could have pushed more in a few bits…but I’m in Championship mode, and I want to win the Championship. I’m here to rack the points up and win as many as I can, in the cleanest way possible.”
Alex Powell: “I think it was a super consistent weekend. The pace was there from the very beginning, we just built from there on out. We’ll take this weekend as really positive way to start the Championship, it’s a long campaign. We need to stay consistent. I’m very proud of the work we did collectively as a Team, I think we worked in a very good direction this weekend. We just need to keep looking forward to the rest of the Championship, and continue building off of this really positive form.”
Kean Nakamura Berta: “at the start of the race I finally had a decent launch, I managed to stay in the front. I gave loads of try on Yamakoshi, and in the end finally in T10 I managed to get through. It was a good race, it was really fun racing against him, he had a good defence. I’d like to thank Prema for the mega car they have gave, and Alpine, Bruno especially, who just helped throughout the whole week, and Gary Catt from Infinity Sports Management who was here and supported me all the way until today.”