The final race of the Italian F.4 Championship at Imola marks the return of the British driver Freddie Slater. The star of the Prema Racing team attacked from the start, moving up to second place at the start and then taking advantage of a lockup of poleman Yamakoshi to overtake and maintain the lead until the checkered flag. Japanese driver Yamakoshi, representing Van Amersfoort Racing, had won the previous two races (with an appeal still pending regarding Slater's exclusion from Race 1, leaving the standings sub iudice) and became the Championship leader after Race 2. In the final race of the weekend, he jumped over a kerb and damaged his front wing, forcing him to pit just before the finish. Second in Race 3 was Jack Beeton of US Racing. The Australian had to defend from the start against the attacks of his teammate Maxim Rehm, who had an increasingly strong weekend, culminating in a third-place finish overall and a Rookie victory.
The final race of the second round of the Championship at Imola also saw the return to the top of the standings for Alex Powell. After issues in the previous two races of the weekend, the Jamaican junior Mercedes driver for Prema Racing finished the race in P4, making a comeback on the Rookie podium. Highlights of his race included a long chase and a remarkable overtake on his Japanese teammate Kean Nakamura Berta. Fifth place went to US Racing's Akshay Bohra. Bohra, twice on the podium in P2 during the weekend, ended with a haul of 46 points, securing third place in the drivers' standings.
Sixth and third-best Rookie in Race 3 was Japanese Alpine Academy driver for Prema Racing Kean Nakamura Berta. Following him in seventh place was Finnish driver Luka Sammalisto of R-ace GP, who had a mechanical failure on the rear wing in Race 2, thus concluding the weekend on a high note. P8 went to Tomass Stolcermanis, who, thanks to his Rookie victories in the previous two races, climbed to the top of the emerging drivers' standings with a total of 100 points (second is Powell with 93). Ninth place in Race 3 went to Dutch driver Reno Francot of Jenzer Motorsport, who was involved in an intense battle with Rashid Al Dhaheri of Prema Racing, which included a contact between the two.
Tenth place was taken by Swedish driver Gustav Jonsson of Van Amersfoort Racing, securing the last point available. Out of the points Prema Racing driver Dion Gowda, after being on the third step of the podium in Race 1 and 2.
Another extremely spectacular race with unexpected twists, in a second round of the Italian F.4 Championship that provided great entertainment and kept spectators on the edge of their seats. Despite the threat of heavy rain on Sunday afternoon, June 2, which led Race Control to declare a “wet race” on Race 3 in advance, all the weekend’s races were dry, allowing the drivers to fully showcase their skills on the challenging track of the Autodromo Nazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola.
The standings after the second round of the Championship still see Freddie Slater at the top with 100 points, followed by Hiyu Yamakoshi with 82 points, then Bohra with 73 points, and Powell with 66 points. The latter has relinquished the Rookie class lead to his teammate Stolcermanis, who is first with 100 points, with only a 7-point advantage. The standings remained sub iudice after the round.
The next round of the Championship will be held at the Autodromo Piero Taruffi in Vallelunga on the weekend of June 16, for the third of the seven seasonal rounds.
Freddie Slater: “the weekend has been tough. Quali was chaotic, unfortunately Race 1 didn’t stayed our way, it something out of our control. Race 2 was also a bit of shambles, I just made a few mistakes. I made mistakes, are things I need to learn from, and take into the season and my career. Then in Race 3, I knew I was playing the long game. Once the start happened, I knew I had put him under pressure and is exactly what I did, he manage to break the front wing, and we came out on top. This is what we needed. We need momentum, the more the rhythm you have going off the weekends, it gives you more momentum when you get some next one. When we get to Vallelunga, it should give us that extra boost. We will try and keep it up for the rest of the season, massive thank you to all of Prema, my engineer Vincent, we were on a bad foot in testing, and now we are on top. A massive thank you to all of them.”
Jack Beeton: “after good qualifying, P2 for both Race 2 and Race 3, we had high expectations for the races. Obviously, it was really disappointing in Race 2 to be taken out when we were in P3, but we knew we had to bounce back for this race. We just kept to go ahead, run our race and ended P2 in the end. I’m really pleased with the result. Obviously, I would have liked to score points in all three races, but a P4 and a P2…you can be happy with that. It was a nice weekend.”
Maxim Rehm: “I’m just happy we finally found some speed. I was struggling so much when I first came into F4, and now we are doing little steps in the right direction, we are finding speed. Luckily, I did a second fastest lap in Q2 on Saturday. I was starting P4, I just managed to keep the fourth position, and then Yamakoshi lost his front wing and I took that as my advantage. Now we finish P3, in the last lap, it was just all about keeping it together and bring it home.”