The stars of the Italian F.4 Championship returned to the track at Vallelunga for the second and final free practice session of the day, a prelude to the qualifying sessions scheduled for the evening. In Series 1, featuring the first 20 of the 40 drivers entered for the second round of the season, the battle at the top resumed between Gabriel Gomez and Kean Nakamura-Berta. This time, it was the Brazilian of US Racing who came out on top, setting the best lap in 1:34.296.
Nakamura-Berta, who had led the way in the morning, ended the session in second place, trailing by just eight thousandths. The third fastest time went to Chinese driver Newman Chi, also racing with Prema Racing, who finished 0.507 seconds off the lead. He was followed by German driver Maxim Rehm of US Racing in fourth place, with a gap of 0.565, just edging out the Italian driver of R-ace GP, fifth by a margin of 0.567.
Sixth fastest was Maksimilian Popov of Van Amersfoort Racing, one of the quickest in the morning session, who ended with a gap of 0.758. Alex Powell, the Mercedes junior with R-ace GP, finished seventh at 0.836, ahead of Artem Severiukhin of Jenzer Motorsport at 0.948, and Romanian driver Luca Viisoreanu of Real Racing, the last driver to stay within one second of Gomez, at 0.982.
Teo Schropp of Jenzer Motorsport completed the top 10, 1.004 seconds off the leader.
Next up on track were the drivers in Series 2. The fastest in this group was Tomass Stolcermanis of Prema Racing, who clocked a 1:34.361. However, that wasn’t enough to dethrone Gomez from the top of the combined standings. Second quickest in Series 2 was Sebastian Wheldon, also with Prema, 0.204 seconds behind. Third fastest was Luka Sammalisto of US Racing, 0.216 off the lead.
Fourth place went to Colombian driver Salim Hanna of Prema, at 0.315, followed by Ukrainian teammate Oleksandr Bondarev at 0.355. Kabir Anurag of US Racing, representing Singapore, finished sixth at 0.368, while seventh place went to Romanian driver David Cosma-Cristofor of PHM AIX Racing at 0.548. Eighth fastest was Australian driver Dante Vinci of Van Amersfoort Racing at 0.689, followed by Marcus Saeter and Jan Koller, ninth and tenth respectively, with gaps of 0.698 and 0.720.
With the second session now complete, all setup work for the weekend has officially come to a close. In addition to today’s free practice sessions, teams also benefitted from an extended collective test day on Thursday. All eyes now turn to qualifying, which will already take place this evening, Friday 23 May. Series 1 will be on track from 18:10 to 18:30, followed by Series 2 from 18:40 to 19:00.
Weekend schedule
On Saturday, 24 May, two races will be held: Race 1 at 12:10 (Groups B and C), followed by Race 2 at 18:00 (Groups A and B). On Sunday, 25 May, Race 3 will take place at 9:00 (Groups A and C), with the Final Race wrapping up the weekend at 15:30. All races will last 25 minutes plus one lap.
Where to watch
All races will be broadcast live on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228 and Tivùsat channel 52), and streamed on www.acisport.tv, as well as on ACI Sport TV’s official Facebook and YouTube pages. Live English commentary will be available on the Italian F4 Championship’s social media channels and through the series’ international broadcast partners.
Access to the circuit is free, with open entry to both the paddock and grandstands upon registration at the following link:
https://ticket.vallelunga.it/it/racing/arwmaggio25