Photo: ACI Sport
US Racing’s Jack Beeton and Prema’s Freddie Slater were quickest in Italian Formula 4 qualifying at Barcelona.
Beeton set the pace in Q1, although initially it was Maffi Racing’s Nathanael Berreby who was the surprise pacesetter. AKM Motorsport’s Emanuele Olivieri was first to a more representative pace, then Slater set a 1m42.200s to go top.
Maxim Rehm beat that by 0.367 seconds, then his team-mate Beeton smashed his benchmark out of the park by 0.461s and improved again to 1m41.347s to take pole by 0.105s over team-mate Akshay Bohra. However a two-place grid penalty carried across from the previous round meant Bohra earned the pole.
Slater was a further 0.086s behind in third, with US’s Kabir Anurag impressing in fourth ahead of Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi.
Berreby’s team-mate Gabriel Holguin was first to the top in Q2, then US’s Edu Robinson (who had moved from AS Motorsport) and Rehm started trading fastest laps and brought the pace down into the low 1m41s.
Soon Beeton and Slater had found clear air and were fighting each other for pole once again, with a 1m40.829s putting Slater ahead with five minutes to go. Beeton responded with a 1m40.806s, an effort that Slater was just able to beat by 0.006s.
On his next lap Beeton failed to improve, and neither could Slater, then they faced more traffic and the fight for pole appeared to be over. Slater clinched first place on the grid for race two not only by a tiny margin over Beeton, but with three other drivers alo within 0.1s of him.
Yamakoshi was just 0.045s behind in third, Nakamura a further 0.012s back in fourth and Bohra completed a top five covered by 0.091s. There were 20 driver within 0.87s of pole,
Williams Formula 1 junior Sasha Bondarev (Prema) and Hudson Schwartz (VAR) were 25th and 26th respectively on their debut. Schwartz came eighth in USF2000 this year with one podium, and was eighth in USF Juniors last year.
Drivers’ second-best laptimes set the grid for race three, and that meant laps from Q2 for all but one in the 32-car field. Slater secured another pole, again by a tiny margin of just 0.05s over Beeton, with Bohra, Yamakoshi and Nakamura in third, fourth and fifth.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Akshay Bohra US Racing +0.105s
2 Freddie Slater Prema +0.191s
3 Jack Beeton US Racing 1m41.347s
4 Kabir Anurag US Racing +0.378s
5 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema +0.389s
6 Hiyu Yamakoshi Van Amersfoort Racing +0.457s
7 Maxim Rehm US Racing +0.486s
8 Gustav Jonsson Van Amersfoort Racing +0.499s
9 Alex Powell Prema +0.571s
10 Dion Gowda Prema +0.593s
Race 2 grid
1 Slater 1m40.800s
2 Beeton +0.006s
3 Yamakoshi +0.045s
4 Nakamura +0.057s
5 Bohra +0.091s
6 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +0.275s
7 Jonsson +0.283s
8 Edu Robinson US Racing +0.299s
9 Rehm +0.376s
10 Anurag +0.440s
Race 3 grid
1 Slater 1m40.829s
2 Beeton +0.050s
3 Bohra +0.159s
4 Yamakoshi +0.165s
5 Nakamura +0.182s
6 Pradel +0.324s
7 Robinson +0.391s
8 Rehm +0.453s
9 Jonsson +0.484s
10 Luka Sammalisto R-ace GP +0.541s