Flawless Freddie Slater completes Misano hat-trick in Italian F4

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Freddie Slater completed a perfect start to the Italian Formula 4 season with a third win from three races at Misano.

Slater was imperious up front, unphased by safety car interruptions, with team-mates Alex Powell and Kean Nakamura Berta completing the podium.

“A mega weekend. It was quite tough with the amount of safety cars we had,” said a delighted Slater. “We’ve had nine [restarts] over the three races but it’s pretty hard to get a gap. It’s about being as fast as you can without damaging the tyre so that’s what we did.”

While admitting he had “definitely been pushing”, Slater noted “there’s no point overstretching the tyre; I realised that I didn’t need to overpush the braking zones to cause myself some damage later in the race”.

He praised Prema too: “Amazing job to put all six cars with amazing speed. We went to bed last night thinking we need another car on the podium to lock it out and we did exactly that. The team put the cars underneath us to deliver and we’ve done exactly that.”

Powell rounded off an excellent weekend with a third successive runner-up finish, but never challenged Slater. Nakamura put in his best drive of the event, taking third with a daring move on Hiyu Yamakoshi then closing in on his team-mate.

US Racing’s Akshay Bohra, the main rival to Prema’s dominance at Misano, exited podium contention in the race’s opening seconds as he stalled from third and once he finally got going was half a lap down.

Van Amersfoort Racing driver Yamakoshi made the best start, challenging Powell into turn one. An incident between Kamal Mrad and Kai Daryanani brought out the safety car on lap two but racing resumed after a lap and Slater dropped his pursuers instantly. He then gradually but remorselessly eked out his lead as in the previous races.

Yamakoshi had to defend vigorously from Nakamura, who was looking everywhere for a gap, after the first safety car period. The safety car returned at the end of lap eight after Enea Frey parked up on the edge of the track. It meant Yamakoshi was freed from Nakamura’s attacks, but the relief was temporary as when racing resumed Nakamura Berta pulled alongside down the back straight, held the inside through the fast turn 13 right-hander and got ahead. Gianmarco Pradel sought to follow him through.

Pradel had initially run in sixth under pressure from Reno Francot, but Francot then dropped into the clutches of Davide Larini and Gustav Jonsson. After the second safety car period, Pradel passed Rashid Al Dhaheri as Larini increased his attacks on Francot and drew alongside down the back straight but could not get past on the outside of turn 14.

In his efforts to catch Yamakoshi, Pradel then actually ended up falling back behind Al Dhaheri.

There was one more safety car period, caused by Emanuele Olivieri spinning Enzo Yeh. Green flags waved with just over a minute and a lap remaining, and Slater nailed the restart. Francot finished eighth, having been passed by Tomass Stolcermanis.

Race results (17 laps)