The opening day of Round 4 of the Italian F4 Championship got underway at Mugello Circuit. Friday's schedule features two 40-minute free practice sessions before qualifying takes place later this afternoon. Setting the early benchmark was France's Andy Consani, the Mercedes Junior Team driver racing with R-ace GP.
Fresh from a strong home round of the E4 Championship at Paul Ricard, Consani arrived at Mugello carrying positive momentum and an excellent feeling with the car. He immediately showed impressive pace in Free Practice 1, posting the fastest lap in 1’50.256.
Second quickest was US Racing's Oleksandr Savinkov, just 0.103 seconds adrift of the benchmark, while Germany's Elia Weiss (Jenzer Motorsport) completed the top three, 0.158 seconds behind.
Swiss driver Florentin Hattemer continued his strong form by finishing fourth, 0.254 seconds off the pace, as the fastest Trident Motorsport driver. Fifth fastest was fellow Mercedes Junior Team driver Kenzo Craigie (R-ace GP), 0.264 seconds behind, followed by US Racing's Ary Bansal in sixth with a 0.330-second gap.
Seventh fastest was Spanish-British driver Edward Robinson (US Racing), 0.456 seconds off the top time, ahead of Ferrari Driver Academy member Niccolò Maccagnani (Prema Racing), who finished eighth at 0.534.
Rounding out the top ten were Czech driver Dominik Simek (Trident Motorsport) and Teo Borenstein (Jenzer Motorsport), with respective gaps of 0.549 and 0.573 seconds.
The second free practice session is scheduled for 12:50 today, Friday 24 July. Qualifying will follow later in the afternoon, with Division 1 on track from 17:15 to 17:35, followed by Division 2 from 17:45 to 18:05.
Racing begins on Saturday 25 July, with Race 1 featuring Groups B and C at 11:10, followed by Race 2 for Groups A and B at 17:10.
On Sunday 26 July, the day opens with the Groups A and C race at 09:00, before the Final, featuring the fastest 36 drivers of the weekend, gets underway at 15:50.
All races will run over 25 minutes plus one lap, with full championship points awarded to the top 15 finishers. Every race will be broadcast live on ACI Sport TV, streamed on the official ACI Sport and Italian F4 Championship social media channels, and distributed through the championship's extensive international broadcast network.