Powell wins as black-and-white flag appears in dirty and messy F4 race

Photo: ACI Sport

Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Alex Powell provisionally won a chaotic opening Euro 4 race at Monza.

The television feed for the race showed Powell getting a black-and-white flag for unsportsmanlike conduct after a move [pictured above] in which Prema team-mate Dion Gowda squeezed US Racing’s Maxim Rehm off track at high speed down the back straight and Powell then swept across both.

There were other moments of both Prema drivers leaving their rivals little room on straights and corners, while US’s line-up followed up their stall-filled Italian Formula 4 outing at Barcelona last week with a race where they repeatedly struggled to navigate the first corners at racing speed.

Plenty of drivers flagrantly exceeded track limits, leading to front wings falling off and a combination of debris and gravel accumulating across the track, with rejoins that it will be up to the stewards to decide if were unsafe.

At the start, poleman Rehm held his lead as team-mates Jack Beeton and Gianmarco Pradel went to the outside of him at turn one and collided. Pradel’s car was sent fully into the air, but he was able to continue driving once it landed.

On the short straight before Lesmo 1 there was another crash, which wiped out Jenzer Motorsport’s Reno Francot, US’s Edu Robinson and R-ace GP’s Luka Sammalisto. The safety car was summoned, and racing did not resume until lap five.

Beeton and team-mate Akshay Bohra passed Rehm straight away, and Powell cleared him at turn one but fell behind his team-mate Kean Nakamura Berta. Freddie Slater followed through at the della Roggia chicane.

Powell ended the lap in fifth, while Rehm was down in seventh as he got baulked by others and lost ground on the straights.

Beeton had a 1.5-second lead, and Nakamura swept past Bohra. Slater attempted to follow him through at della Roggia but Bohra wanted to get back ahead of Nakamura and the outcome was Slater spinning. Powell meanwhile was fending off Gowda, who Rehm went to pass on the back straight. A remarkable save there as he was sent onto the grass, then from a lock-up at Parabolica, meant he ended the lap without losing further ground.

However he then crashed out at Curva Grande, and Gowda lost out to PHM Racing’s Davide Larini and AKM Motorsport’s Emanuele Olivieri.

The safety car returned, and the next restart was on lap nine. Beeton cut turn one, Bohra did the same after Nakamura broke off his front wing when they made contact at the apex, and Powell skipped the first corners too. Although he did make the effort of staying on track unlike his rivals, Nakamura then stayed on it rather than pit for a new nosecone.

Title rivals Slater and Hiyu Yamakoshi (Van Amrfoort Racing) profited from the chaos to rie up the order, and Bohra took the lead at turn two next time by as Beeton cut it again.

Bohra held the lead but drove straight through debris on the run to Ascari, allowing Powell to tuck into his slipstream and then go past at the end of the lap.

Nakamura’s compromised car was making it harder for his rivals to overtake him safely into corners, but a crash for Jenzer’s Enea Frey stopped that as the safety car returned again to end the race. Slater got back up to 10th, but lost the points lead to Bohra pending any post-race penalties.

Race result (12 laps)