Sauber karter Zachary David tops Italian F4 practice at Red Bull Ring

Photo: ACI Sport

Sauber karter Zachary David was fastet for US Racing on a wet free practice day at the Red Bull Ring for the Italian Formula 4 championship.

A capacity 40-car enty list has turned up to Austria this weekend, with a fourth race added to the schedule due to a grid size limit. Both of the 40-minute practice sessions were declared wet, and meant drivers spent most of their time in the pits.

Prema’s points leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli laid down the early benchmark to beat, improving on each of his first three laps to keep himself in first place all the way through until the final seven minutes of FP1 when BWR Motorsports’ Taylor Barnard – who had matched Antonelli’s early 1m46.782s effort – set a 1m46.253s lap.

Iron Lynx’s Maya Weug jumped up to second place at the same time, but a minute later both were demoted by US Racing’s Kacper Sztuka who posted a 1m46.141s.

Barnard’s next lap brought the pace down into the 1m45s, and US’s Alex Dunne then bettered Barnard with three-and-a-half minutes to go. Sztuka returned to first place though as he crossed the line, setting a 1m45.481s to put him 0.064 seconds ahead.

Antonelli, who had been been shuffled down to seventh, then jumped back up to the top with a 1m45.323s lap that was not beaten by anyone else before red flags were waved with 40s to go.

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior also started FP2 by immediately going fastest, and was only bettered by David and Sztuka before conditions worsened, there was a red flag stoppage and the track got slower.

Niko Lacorte, driving for the Iron Lynx-supported Cetilar Racing team, and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad were 11th and 12th fastest ahead of their F4 debuts.

Alfio Spina has moved from BWR Motorsports to BVM Racing for this weekend,

Test results