Photo: ACI Sport
Jenzer Motorsport’s Teo Borenstein mastered the rain at Misano to set the fastest lap overall in qualifying for Italian Formula 4’s penultimate round.
The Czech driver, who lies 36th in the overall standings, took advantage of the emergence of a drier line to dominate the second session, going top midway through the 20-minute session before lowering the benchmark time again on each of his final two laps. His final best lap stood at 1m54.172s, a massive 0.481s clear of US Racing’s Ary Bansal, who had topped the first session.
The first group faced a wet track following heavy afternoon rain. Van Amersfoort Racing’s Thomas Bearman was among the first to set a representative time, before Bansal was the first driver to break into the 1m54s as the track began to dry.
A close fight developed between Bansal and Christian Costoya, the McLaren junior going fastest with a time of 1m54.745s on his penultimate lap.
Despite knocking 0.045s off his time next time around, Bansal responded on his own final lap, to sbnatch back the top spot by 0.047s. Bearman finished third, followed by US Racing’s Noah Killion, Jenzer’s Elia Weiss and US Racing’s Ludovico Busso.
Mercedes junior Kenzo Craigie had to settle for seventh, 0.843s off the pace, with championship leader, US Racing’s Luca Sammalisto, who needsjust 28 points to wrap up the title this weekend, back in 18th, after failing to get to grips with the car and the changeable conditions.
The second group ran in slightly drier but still inconsistent conditions. Borenstein immediately established himself at the front and continued to improve as the track gained grip.
Trident’s Florentin Hattemer posted three sub-1m55s laps but finished the session almost half-a-second shy of Borenstein. Prema’s Alp Aksoy took third ahead of US Racing’s Edward Robinson and R‑ace GP’s Jensen Burnett.
Sammalisto’s closest challenger for the championship, albeit with a deficit of 99 points, Prema’s David Cosma-Cristofor was another who struggled to get up to speed, only breaking into the 1m55s on his final lap and finishing 16th in the group. As a result, he will start both heats from the 11th row, one row better than Sammalisto, giving both plenty to do on the tight Adriatic circuit, with sunnier conditions expected over the weekend.
The second Mercedes junior at R-ace GP, Andy Consani, finds himself even further back, having ended the session one-tenth and three places slower than Cosma-Cristofor.
Speaking after the session, Borenstein said the conditions required constant adaptation. ““Very difficult conditions, the braking zones were challenging. The track was slowly drying up, and I had to adapt every lap.”
Though he acknowledged that the conditions had played a part, he credited Jenzer’s set-up, adding: “The car was amazing and we managed to put it on pole.
“I love wet conditions, but even in these conditions, even with the sun, everything worked really well. I’ll do my best. The goal is to maintain the lead into Turn 1 and keep it clean,” he said.