At Misano World Circuit, after free practices, the qualifying sessions of round 2 of the Italian F.4 Championship, the single-seater series promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion, went underway. Very tight the first session that saw the final leap of the Finnish driver of PREMA Racing, Ferrari Driver Academy Tuukka Taponen. At the checkered flag Taponen stopped the clock at 1'34.870 and, together with Arvid Lindblade, teammate in PREMA Racing, at +0.013, they took away the place of honor from James Wharton. The Australian of PREMA, himself in the Ferrari youth program, closed at +0.085, after holding the lead for a long time. P4 for Brando Badoer, Van Amersfoort Racing, who earned the second row in race 1 with +0.109. Third row for Prema's McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu (+0.124) and Van Amersfoort driver Ivan Domingues. The performance of Brazilian Aurelia Nobels, a junior Ferrari of PREMA Racing, was also excellent; with +0.546 she will start from the sixth row, first among the women in the race, flanked by Chinese US Racing's Liu Ruiqi (+0.564).
The second qualifying session is no less in terms of battles.
The Londoner, in Red Bull livery, achieved the best possible result, setting two fastest laps that earned him both of the remaining pole positions up for grabs. With the best lap signed at 1'34.362, Lindblad will occupy the first grid block in Saturday's second race flanked by Ugochukwu (+0.024). Just between Lindblad and the American there is an exchange of positions under the checkered flag, which eventually favored the championship leader. Third place again to James Wharton, again with a very small gap (+0.061). Taponen accompanied him on the second row with +0.132. Fifth place for Kacper Sztuka, US Racing, at +0.197, followed by Badoer (+0.256).
Tomorrow, Saturday, May 6 will be an exciting day, with two races on track. Race 1 will be at the start at 12:10, followed later in the evening by race 2, at the starting blocks at 17:35. Sunday, May 7, race 3 will open the second day of the ACI Racing Weekend Misano, with the start scheduled at 9.00. All races will be broadcast live with English commentary on the Italian F.4 Championship's Youtube and Facebook pages and on Motorsport TV (https://eu.motorsport.tv/); also airing with commentary in Italian on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228), on www.acisport.it and on the Facebook page @acisporttv.
Tuukka Taponen: “It was a good lap. I was struggling a little bit in the beginning, in the end I improved and I was able to improve my lap time on the last lap. If you want to do pole, you need to get some slipstream as well. In the first qualifying I didn’t have any slipstream so it was quite good. In the second one I had a bit of traffic in the end, so I couldn’t really maximize the result, but still, it was ok.”
Arvid Lindblad: "really good session, I was a little bit disappointed after Q1 to be in P2 especially with such a close margin as well, but than I was focused for Q2 and I did a good job and a good lap, managing the session as much as I could and I’ve got pole for race 2 and 3. Now I’m in a very good position for the three races and the goal is to score good points. The team done a phenomenal job, the car was incredible to drive. Is a joy to drive the car and I’m so grateful to everyone especially my engineer Vincenzo and my mechanics Mauro and Laura and everyone else in the team."