The first race at the Mugello Circuit, the fourth round of the Italian F.4 Championship season, saw Prema Racing's British driver Freddie Slater continue his streak of successes. His eighth win, the fifth in a row, was hard-fought, concluding with a duel that lasted the entire race. It was Jack Beeton, the Australian driver of US Racing, who took P1 at the start, overtaking his teammate Akshay Bohra. The Brit followed closely, taking second place, and from there began the battle that saw the two drivers within a one-second gap throughout the race. After the Safety Car restart, caused by an incident between Filippo Fiorentino (Cram Motorsport) and Wiktor Dobrzanski (AS Motorsport), the final showdown began. Slater attacked Beeton on the penultimate lap in a tough but highly respectful duel between the two, culminating in a spectacular overtake by the Brit. Beeton, after leading most of the race, finished second on the podium, reflecting his starting grid position. Third on the podium was Akshay Bohra, who was overtaken at the start by the two and then tried in the final stages to close the gap on Beeton to move up a position but found no space to maneuver. The US Racing American-Indian driver will now seek to regain full concentration for a comeback in the next two races of the weekend, starting from advanced positions to contest victory with poleman Slater.
Fourth in Race 1 was the Japanese driver Hiyu Yamakoshi, who maintained his starting position, staying out of trouble in a complex race with many elements to control, particularly tyre degradation on the scorching Tuscan track, which required special attention from all drivers. Following him in fifth place was Rookie class winner Alex Powell. The Prema Racing junior Mercedes driver had an excellent race, starting from the seventh grid block, first engaging in a position swap with Tomass Stolcermanis, then passing Kean Nakamura Berta. The two completed a Prema-dominated Rookie podium, with the Japanese Alpine Academy driver taking the second step of the podium in sixth place overall, followed by the Latvian Stolcermanis. After Race-1 Powell regained the top of the Rookie drivers stadings, with only 1-point advantage on Stolcermanis.
Swedish Van Amersfoort Racing driver Gustav Jonsson finished eighth in Race 1, securing his position with an exciting overtake on Jenzer Motorsport's Dutch driver Reno Francot. Francot finished ninth, gaining one position from the starting grid. Completing the top 10 and earning the last point was Brazilian Matheus Ferreira of US Racing. Just outside the points was Real Racing's Romanian driver Luca Viisoreanu.
In addition to the stops for Fiorentino and Dobrzanski due to an incident following an intense duel between the two, there were also problems in Race 1 for Italian driver Emanuele Oliveri. The AKM Motorsport driver had to pit-in at the end of the third lap due to a technical issue with the car that required further investigation by the Team. Swiss driver Enea Frey of Jenzer Motorsport also had to stop after a brief off-track excursion into the gravel on the tenth lap. There was also an incident involving Chinese driver Enzo Yeh (R-ace GP) and Ukrainian Oleksandr Savinkov (AKM Motorsport), with both cars colliding on the last lap and failing to cross the finish line.
Post-race penalties were assigned to Dobrzanski (losing 4 grid positions for the next race) and Savinkov (losing 6 grid positions for the next race).
A 5-second penalty was also added to the race times of Oscar Wurz (Jenzer Motorsport), Andrej Petrovi (PHM AIX Motorsport), and Davide Larini (PHM AIX Motorsport), all for overtaking under Safety Car conditions. The Tuscan driver Larini had a good Race 1 in his home track, recovering several positions from the starting grid.
Freddie Slater: “Jack gave me plenty of room, we raced hard with each other, but we raced with respect, and that was the main thing. 30 minutes of intense battle, we were under a second apart for the whole race. The heat made it super challenging with the tyres. Mega result in the end. Thanks to Jack for racing hard with me and being respectful, and I’m giving that respect back. It was good racing, looking forward to the next one.”
Jack Beeton: “It was a really good start, going from P2 to P1 straight away. I held that position until the safety car. I had an average restart behind the safety car, and I was immediately under attack. I managed to keep that position for two more laps, then I made a small mistake, and that was it. Racing at such a high level, you can’t afford to make any mistakes, you have to be perfect all race. Still, P2, from P2 on the grid, is not a bad result. [on the Safety Car restart] It’s a really long straight here at Mugello, I was just trying to give him the slipstream for as little time as possible. He predicted it quite well, and I was under attack straight away. Maybe next time that would work, it just depends on what the driver behind is thinking. Everyone wants to win, and certainly, I did as well. I’m still happy with the result, but I want that win next time!”
Akshay Bohra: “My apologies to the Team, we didn’t deserve this. The car was good enough for the win, I just didn’t put it all together, so that’s on me. Feeling so disappointed for a third place, maybe it’s a good thing. I need to work on myself if I want to win races. I think I just need to calm down a bit and trust myself a bit more. As soon as I start doubting myself, it just becomes worse, but if I believe in myself I think I can do better.”
Alex Powell: “It was a bit of a difficult race, a tough weekend so far, but it looks like we are making steps forward. Yesterday’s qualifying wasn’t ideal, not too bad, but we put ourselves in a bit of a difficult situation for today. I think we made a pretty good step this morning in Race 1. We made some moves on the Safety Car restart, it was a bit tough to manage with dirty air and managing the tires throughout the race with degradation, and so on. A pretty decent first race, a good starting point for the weekend. We still have a bit of work to do, but we have two more races to continue improving, trying to take advantage of as many situations as possible and continue building a good season.”
Kean Nakamura Berta: “Race 1 wasn’t a bad race, I finished P6… not what we wanted. I think where the race went down was probably the start, when I lost one position, and on the restart. Overall, it wasn’t such a bad race, could have gone worse. I think the overall race pace was strong.”
Tomass Stolcermanis: “I had a quite good start, I even got to overtake Alex into turn 3, he got me back in turn 6. From then it was just dirty air and I couldn’t do anything to improve or overtake. I lost a bit of pace in the second part of the race, so we have to look at that, but I think the race was quite decent.”
Today, Saturday, July 13, there's still Race 2 (30 minutes + 1 lap) to go, starting at 18:55. The final race of the weekend will be on Sunday, July 14, also 30 minutes + 1 lap, starting at 11:20.
The three races of the weekend will be broadcast live on the Italian F.4 Championship's YouTube and Facebook channels, on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228, Tivù Sat channel 52, and streaming on www.acisport.it), as well as on the extensive network of international television stations that broadcast the Italian F4 Championship 2024, including the DAZN platform.
The public is invited to follow the exploits of their favorite drivers up close and enjoy an exciting motorsport weekend at the Mugello Circuit. Tickets for the event are available on the Ticketone platform at the following address: https://www.ticketone.it/artist/aci-racing-weekend/