Rosso beats charging Bortoleto in wet Italian F4 opener at Mugello

Photo: ACI Sport

Cram Motorsport’s Andrea Rosso beat Prema Powerteam’s Gabriel Bortoleto in the first Italian Formula 4 race of the weekend at Mugello.

The 30-minute race started behind the safety car due to the adverse conditions, and several drivers spun off then – including Jenzer Motorsport’s Piotr Wisnicki and Francesco Braschi.

Poleman Rosso got an excellent launch on the restart, and Prema’s Gabriele Mini was immediately under pressure from Jenzer’s Filip Ugran for second and was passed at San Donato.

Jenzer’s Santiago Ramos was the first to trip up once racing began, going off at the first corner.

From there, Rosso opened up a sizeable gap to Ugran, as Mini continued to slip behind.

Bortoleto started 12th, having qualified second but serving a 10-place grid penalty for an engine chance, and was able to climb up the order. He got past Mini, then Ugran, and then his sights on the lead.

The gap was 4.7 seconds at that point, and he was able to whittle it down to 1.6s at the end of the race.

It was a difficult afternoon for Red Bull juniors Jonny Edgar and Jak Crawford. Edgar spun off at the final corner before Crawford was taken out by Prema’s Dino Beganovic shortly afterwards. Both were fighting for the lower points places prior to their incidents.

Beganovic was able to continue and ended up in a scrap with G4 Racing’s Axel Gnos. This brought Prema’s Sebastian Montoya into play, and after Beganovic got clear, Gnos and Montoya collided – an incident that ruined both of their races.

Several other cars struggled to keep it on the road, which allowed Ramos to climb back up the order. He found himself in a battle with Van Amersfort’s Francesco Pizzi and car racing debutant Taylor Barnard to the line.

The trio ended up three wide in their scrap over ninth across the line, ending in Pizzi’s favour ahead of Ramos. Nico Rosberg protege Barnard finished just outside of the points.

Race results (14 laps)