Qualifying has concluded at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola for the fifth round of the Italian F.4 Championship. The Friday evening double session was packed with excitement as part of the ACI Racing Weekend, which hosts the fifth event of the season. Twice at the chequered flag, Gabriel Gomez of US Racing set the fastest lap, while Oleksandr Bondarev continues to impress. The Ukrainian driver from Prema Racing, representing the Williams Driver Academy, extends his positive momentum that began in E4 at Le Castellet. He claimed pole position for Race 3 after securing two front-row starts in qualifying, missing out on P1 in Qualifying 2 by just 5 thousandths of a second.
Everything was decided in the final moments of the first session, when Gabriel Gomez topped the timesheets with a lap of 1’46.368, snatching the lead from Kean Nakamura-Berta, who had held the top spot until the closing minutes. At the chequered flag, Oleksandr Bondarev finished second, 0.202 behind. Kean Nakamura-Berta was third with a gap of 0.308. The Japanese driver from Prema Racing, current leader of the drivers’ standings, was followed by teammate Salim Hanna in fourth at 0.391. Fifth place went to another Prema Racing representative, Anglo-American driver Sebastian Wheldon, at 0.449. Reno Francot, the Dutch driver from PHM Racing, was sixth at 0.511. A strong performance also came from Emanuele Olivieri of R-ace GP, seventh at 0.556. Newman Chi of Prema Racing followed in eighth at 0.601. Rounding out the top ten were Maksimilian Popov of Van Amersfoort Racing at 0.684 and Maxim Rehm of US Racing at 0.795.
The session was briefly interrupted by a red flag due to an issue with Elia Weiss’s car from Cram Motorsport, which came to a halt on the main straight. The German driver was penalised with the cancellation of his best lap.
Gabriel Gomez took another pole position in Qualifying 2, this time with a lap of 1’46.101. Just 5 thousandths ahead of Oleksandr Bondarev, who again took second. Very close behind was Kean Nakamura-Berta in third, only 0.022 adrift. Newman Chi secured the second row with a 0.240 gap, followed by Emanuele Olivieri, who improved further with fifth at 0.262. Sixth was Maksimilian Popov at 0.305, followed by Salim Hanna at 0.324. Enea Frey, the Swiss driver from Jenzer Motorsport, finished eighth ahead of teammate Artem Severiukhin, with gaps of 0.328 and 0.353 respectively. Tenth was Sebastian Wheldon, Andretti Global driver with Prema, at 0.369.
The second qualifying session proved especially challenging, with many drivers attempting to slipstream one another, resulting in a highly congested end to the session. Due to this, several drivers were penalised with a two-place grid drop for the next race they take part in. Among them were Bondarev himself, as well as Olivieri, Cotty and Albag from R-ace GP, Westcott from Van Amersfoort Racing, Anurag from US Racing, Coppola from Technorace, and Berreby from Maffi Racing.
The heavy traffic made it difficult to complete two fast laps. One of the few to manage it was Oleksandr Bondarev, who secured pole position for Race 3 with a time of 1’46.181, 37 thousandths quicker than Kean Nakamura-Berta, who will start alongside him in Sunday’s race. Third fastest was Maksimilian Popov, followed by Newman Chi and Emanuele Olivieri. Sixth place went to Salim Hanna, ahead of Reno Francot and Gabriel Gomez. Sebastian Wheldon was ninth, while tenth place went to Mercedes junior Alex Powell of R-ace GP.
Gabriel Gomez: “Qualifying was just amazing. Unfortunately, I found too much traffic in Q2 and couldn’t get a good second-best lap. The team did a really good job, I just have to thank them. The car was amazing in quali, we worked really well in all the free practices and the results showed. I’m really happy, now we need to keep pushing for the race. We’ll give our maximum in every condition and try to achieve the best result possible.”
Oleksandr Bondarev: “We already saw in FP2 that we had good pace. I came into qualifying with confidence. Q1 was a bit unlucky due to the red flag, I think I could have gotten closer to P1, but still, second place was a good result. A shame about those 5 thousandths in Q2! But pole for Race 3 is a really nice achievement. It shows how much we’ve grown during the year, and now we can really turn our season around. Obviously, we had a plan, but you have to make very quick decisions. Track position was good for both of my laps, I’m happy I managed to put it together.”
On Saturday 2 August, Race 1 will get underway at 11:40AM (30 minutes plus one lap), followed by Race 2 at 6:40PM (30 minutes plus one lap). The weekend will conclude on Sunday 3 August with Race 3, scheduled for 12:00PM (30 minutes plus one lap).
The first two races will be broadcast live on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228 and Tivùsat channel 52), while Race 3 will be shown delayed on Sunday evening. All races will also be available via livestream at live.acisport.it and on the ACI Sport TV Facebook and YouTube channels. English-language commentary will be available through international broadcasters of the Italian F.4 Championship and via the official social media channels of the series.