Badoer leads Powell in practice for Italian F4 finale

Photo: ACI Sport

Brando Badoer topped both free practice sessions ahead of the Italian Formula 4 finale at Vallelunga, followed in the times by rookie Alex Powell.

Badoer was the 10th and final driver to top the times in FP1, with AKM Motorsport’s Tina Hausmann setting the pace at first with a 1m45.881s laptime.

PHM Racing duo Viktoria Blokhina and Tom Kalender lowered the pace, then then Jenzer Motorsport’s Ariel Elkin went two seconds faster than anyone else.

Prema’s James Wharton then built an even bigger gap at the top of the timesheet, going 3.485s faster than Elkin. But Elkin’s next lap then returned him to first place, as he went 0.384s faster than Wharton.

Just a few seconds later R-ace GP’s Raphael Narac became the first driver to lap in the 1m37s, and Wharton’s next lap was a 1m36.963s.

Elkin was able to go a second faster than that, then he and Narac started trading fastest laps until Wharton set a 1m35.065s to put himself back on top.

For the next 15 minutes it was a battle between Prema drivers to be fastest, with Ugo Ugochukwu, Wharton and Tuukka Taponen bringing the pace down into the 1m34s.

Taponen’s 1m34.174s proved difficult to beat, although US Racing’s Kacper Sztuka was eventually able to do so by 0.003s. Later on Ugochuckwu shaved another 0.157s off the benchmark pace, before Van Amersfoort Racing’s Badoer eventually came around with a 1m33.923s that made him the fastest driver by 0.091s over Ugochukwu.

Hausmann was again first to the top in FP2, with Ruiqi Liu (US Racing), Giacomo Pedrini (PHM Racing), Guido Luchetti (Airflow Racing) and Alfio Spina (BVM Racing) all lowering the pace before the bigger names came to the fore.

Ugochukwu traded fastest laps with Badoer and then Sztuka, then 10 minutes from the end PHM’s James Egozi surprised by usurping both with a 1m34.215s.

Four successive improvement from Badoer following that meant he ended the day on top, with a faster pace than was set in FP1, with Egozi shuffled all the way down to 15th but only 0.444s off the pace.

Prema’s Powell and Arvid Lindblad were second and third fastest, ahead of Sztuka, Ugochukwu, Taponen and Wharton.

Free practice results