Bilinski tops FREC action in Imola test, Yamakoshi fastest in F4

Photo: Sebastian Rozendaal / DPPA

Formula Regional European Championship and Italian Formula 4 teams have been busy testing at Imola over the past four days.

The 26-car F4 entry list was split into two groups for their sessions on Saturday and Sunday.

US Racing’s Gianmarco Pradel started the test on top, setting a 1m46.309s in session one to top the times by just 0.093 seconds and 0.094s respectively over Van Amersfoort Racing duo Dion Gowda and Hiyu Yamakoshi.

PHM Racing’s Davide Larini topped the first Group B session, with a 1m45.228s putting him 0.564s clear of Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta. Tomass Stolcermanis was 0.686s behind in third, spending day one in the cockpit of Prema’s #4 car before handing it over to Freddie Slater on Sunday.

The first sub-1m46s laps were set in Group A’s next session, with Pradel leading the way by 0.08s over Yamakoshi and 0.098s over Gowda.

Group B were even faster, and Nakamura Berta set a 1m45.620s to go top. PHM’s James Ehozi was 0.113s behind in second and Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri was 0.222s back in third.

Yamakoshi edged Pradel by 0.073s to top the next session with a 1m45.668s, and the pace was lowered to 1m45.259s by Egozi in the session after as he went fastest by 0.485s over Larini. Just 0.106s covered second to sixth place.

In his final session Yamakoshi had an even bigger pace advantage, a 1m44.740s putting him 0.676s ahead of Gowda, and when Group B ended Saturday’s running Egozi set a 1m45.067s to put 0.565s between himself and Prema’s Alex Powell in second.

Nakamura Berta began Sunday on top with a 1m45.933s lap, with Al Dhaheri and Jenzer Motorsport’s Shimo Zhang in joint second after both setting 1m46.093s.

Yamakoshi set a 1m44.872s to top Group A’s first session by 0.673s, with 0.005s between Gowda and Kabir Anurag in second and third.

Egozi was the only driver in the 1m44s in the next session, and in Group A’s next outing Pradel was fastest a 1m44.179s, but US Racing’s Finn Wiebelhaus and Yamakoshi were the only other drivers to sub-1m45s.

In Group B’s final two sessions Egozi led Larini by 0.2s both times, and Yamakoshi was the Group A benchmark by 0.5s in his last two sessions. He ended the test with a 1m44.123s to top the weekend’s combined timesheet.

FRegional teams took to the track on Monday, and R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen set the pace in the morning with a 1m39.816s to lead VAR duo Brando Badoer and Ivan Domingues by 0.083s and 0.0983s respectively. Prema’s Rafael Camara was 0.218s behind fourth, with 0.938s covering the top 20 in a 32-car field.

Trident’s Roman Bilinski lowered the pace to 1m39.396s in the afternoon, and edged ART Grand Prix’s Alessandro Giusti to first place by 0.027s. All but six drivers improved on their morning pace, with Badoer among those who did not. R-ace’s Enzo Deligny was absent after crashing in the morning.

Rain hit on Tuesday and laptimes were considerably slower. Race Performance Motorsport’s Noah Stromsted was fastest in the morning by 0.021s over Domingues with a 1m57.984s lap, and in the afternoon Jesse Carrasquedo led G4 Racing team-mate Kanato Le by 0.37s by setting a 1m54.904s.

On track at the same time were Martinius Stenshorne and Cian Shields in GP3 cars and Juju Noda in a Formula Renault 3.5 car.

Test results