The recovery race from Imola (Round 5), held in Misano as the closing act of the final event of the Italian F.4 Championship, officially brought the curtain down on the 2025 season of the single-seater series promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion.
The Italian F.4 Championship ended with Kean Nakamura-Berta’s first victory as champion. Starting from the second row, the Japanese driver from Prema Racing first overtook his teammate Oleksandr Bondarev, then began his chase of Gabriel Gomez. The battle for P1 lasted throughout the entire race, with the Brazilian from US Racing defending masterfully. Only on the final lap did Nakamura-Berta manage to find the gap and complete the decisive move.
Gomez, struggling with a slight performance drop in the closing stages, still held on to second place, earning enough points to secure the runner-up spot in the championship. The third step of the podium went to Oleksandr Bondarev, member of the Williams Driver Academy, who also took victory in the Rookie class. Fourth overall and second among the rookies was Chinese driver Newman Chi.
Emanuele Olivieri of R-ace GP finished fifth, wrapping up his season positively. Sixth across the line was Salim Hanna, who completed the Rookie podium after having already sealed the class title for emerging drivers on Saturday.
Sebastian Wheldon, who dominated the last round of the Italian F.4 Championship with three wins, also fought hard in the Imola recovery race despite starting from the tenth block on the grid. The American driver from Prema Racing, representing the Andretti Global junior program, climbed up to sixth position before losing one place after running onto the grass. His goal was to finish ahead of Gomez to retain P2 in the championship, which he held before the start with just one point of margin.
The American’s season ends with third place in the drivers’ standings.
Eighth position went to Maksimilian Popov of Van Amersfoort Racing, followed by Reno Francot of PHM Racing and Artem Severiukhin of Jenzer Motorsport.
Victory in the women’s race went to Emily Cotty of R-ace GP, twentieth overall and ahead of Payton Westcott of Van Amersfoort Racing. Completing the podium was Kornelia Olkucka of Maffi Racing. Cotty could also celebrate from the top step of the class podium the seasonal title, already mathematically secured.
Kean Nakamura-Berta: “it’s so difficult to overtake in Misano, especially when there isn’t a big difference in pace. Then Gabriel started having some mechanical issues, which bunched everyone up and made things tricky because I also had cars attacking me from behind. In the end, on the last lap, I tried to fake a move into Turn 10 to slow him down a little and managed to get the run out of the corner. Overall it was a really fun race and a fantastic championship. I’m very happy to close it off like this, in a positive way. We’ve got one more championship to try to win in two weeks’ time, so we’ll just keep our heads down, go to Monza, and do our best.”
Gabriel Gomez: “it’s a bittersweet ending for the championship. I was managing the race until the safety car. The race is long, and I wanted to have pace also at the end, and it was good. We had a strong restart and pulled away a bit, but towards the end we had a technical issue and I started losing speed. Anyway, we’re happy with P2 in the championship. Of course, I wanted to fight for the title, but after the first race, when we had a problem, it became difficult. Once again this weekend we showed really good pace. I wanted the win so much, I fought until the last lap even with the issue, but in the end it was impossible to defend. I’m happy with the result, and now we move forward to the E4 Championship, where we’ll try to bring the title home in Monza.”
Oleksandr Bondarev: “it was a good weekend, especially compared to the last two. In qualifying we had a small issue and didn’t really have the pace, so the first three races were difficult starting from P6 and P8. For the Imola recovery race we started from the front row. The pace of the whole team was really strong this weekend, and I’m very thankful to them for all the hard work throughout the year. Finishing the weekend on the podium, with Kean winning, feels great, I think it really highlights all the work we’ve done over the season."
Emily Cotty: “it’s always great to keep improving. Throughout the year we definitely made progress, right from Round 1. Race by race we’ve just gotten better and better. I’m excited to keep this momentum going, in Barcelona we qualified P10 and just missed out on points in the race. Hopefully in Monza for the E4 Championship we can score some points and achieve even better results. I’m really happy to come away with the title; it feels like an extra reward for all the progress we’ve made.”