New Ferrari junior Camara fastest on final day of F4 testing at Mugello

Photo: Champions of the Future

Rafael Camara enjoyed a productive second Formula 4 test with Prema, setting the pace at Mugello on Friday.

The rubber that had been laid down from the previous day’s running was washed away overnight, with more difficult conditions facing drivers in the morning.

Marcus Amand, driving for US Racing, was quickest to adapt and sat atop the times for the first two hours of running. He brought the pace down from 2m13.5s to 2m11.7s, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Oliver Gray and Brando Badoer his closest oppponents early on.

Prema then sent its drivers out on a set strategy in hour three and Ferrari juniors James Wharton and Rafael Camara went to the top, both comfortably faster than Amand.

There was no response from the Frenchman, who ended the morning in a Prema sandwich as he headed Charlie Wurz. US Racing’s Alex Dunne was the only other driver able to get into the 2m11s, while Wharton lapped in the 2m10s.

R-ace GP’s Nikhil Bohra was first on track in the afternoon, but he didn’t stay near the top of the timesheet as Dunne set a new benchmark in the 2m09s.

That stood for 15 minutes before Prema repeated its morning work, with Camara, Wurz and Wharton locking out the top three places.

The latter two had their best laps deleted, but there were no improvements from anyone else in the final few hours of the day and so new Ferrari signing Camara – who had previously tested several times with Cram Motorsport when he was first linked to being taken on by the Ferrari Driver Academy – ended up fastest by 0.125s over Wurz.

Wharton’s deleted lap dropped him to fourth behind Dunne, while Italian karter Andrea Frassineti surprised by going fifth fastest but over a second slower than Camara.

Gray was the only driver not to go faster in the afternoon and ended the day in 22nd place, while one of Jenzer Motorsport’s drivers skipped the morning and was slowest of all in the afternoon.

Test results