Photo: ACI Sport
Jack Beeton and Freddie Slater added to their Italian Formula 4 pole position tallies at Monza, where the 38-car field featured several new faces.
Hudson Schwartz continued as Alvise Rodella’s replacement at Van Amersfoort Racing after debuting last time out at Barcelona, and Dante Vinci replaced Andrija Kostic. The 16-year-old Australian came 30th in the WSK Super Master Series for OK karts this year.
AKM Motorsportreplaced Wiktor Dobrzanski with Mattia Marchiante, who came 36th in Euro 4 with the team, Andrei Duna returned to Real Racing Team after missing six three rounds and Jan Koller reunited with BVM Racing.
Jenzer Motorsport was without Ethan Ischer for the weekend, butadded Bart Harrison and Ciro Sobral to its line-up. Harrison came 20th in British F4 this season, and Sobral is currently fifth in Brazilian F4.
ART Grand Prix also made its first series appearance with McLaren-backed Bianca Bustamante and Williams junior Lia Block. They usually race for the team in F1 Academy, where they are currently seventh and eighth in the standings.
The final change to the entry list was at Maffi Racing, where Kirill Kutskov took the place of the absent Gabriel Holguin. Kutskov began 2024 by coming third in Saudi Arabian F4, then was F4 Central European Zone runner-up.
Drivers faced wet conditions throughout Friday, and in the first 40-minute practice session in the morning nobody did more than 10 laps as three red flag periods interrupted running.
R-ace GP’s Luka Sammalisto and Enzo Yeh traded fastest laps at first, before US Racing’s Maxim Rehm pipped Yeh to top spot. VAR duo Gustav Jonsson and Hiyu Yamakoshi each lowered the pace, before Prema’s already crowned champion Slater put in two laps good enough to be quickest.
He ended the session 0.396s ahead of Jonsson, with team-mate Kean Nakamura Berta 0.837s behind in third and US’s Gianmarco Pradel 0.859s back in fourth. Everyone else was more than a second off the pace.
FP2 was also shortened by red flags, caused by an incident for Koller. Before that, there had been more running and faster laptimes. Nakmaura laid down the first benchmark, and was swiftly beaten by team-mates Dion Gowda, Alex Powell and Slater.
Yamakoshi and Jonsson were then at the top, followed by Jenzer’s Reno Francot, PHM Raciong duo Davide Larini and Maximilian Popov, then Beeton.
Slater surpassed Beeton 15 minutes in, but then did not feature at the top again until the very end as Pradel, Popov, Beeton, Jonsson and Francot each lowered the pace. Francot led the way with a 1m52.895s before Slater beat him by 0.3s at the end.
Nakamura demoted him to third, and also within a second of Slater were Pradel, Rehm and Prema’s Tomass Stolcermanis.
The first qualifying session towards the end of the day was wetter and slower, and once more disrupted by an incident. This time Real Racing Team’s Luca Viisoreanu was the guilty party.
It was a battle between Prema and US’s line-ups to be fastest, and Beeton prevailed by almost half a second by setting a 1m58.547s. Slater was second-best, and both Francot and Powell were 1.16s behind. US’s Akshay Bohra and Pradel were fifth and sixth, ahead of four Prema drivers.
Block and Harrison were the red flag culprits in Q2, which had a similar story at the top to the previous session. This time Slater was fastest, setting a 1m57.666s to lead Nakamura by 0.318s. Beeton and Jonsson were 0.582s and 0.657s behind respestively, and AKM Motorsport’s Emanuele Olivieri made it into the top top five but was 1.188s off pole.
Drivers’ second-best laptimes from the two qualifying sessions set the race three grid, and Slater was on top again by 0.332s over Sammalisto. Pradel and Powell will start third and fourth, ahead of Francot and Beeton.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Jack Beeton US Racing 1m58.547s
2 Freddie Slater Prema +0.497s
3 Reno Francot Jenzer Motorsport +1.160s
4 Alex Powell Prema +1.160s
5 Akshay Bohra US Racing +1.451s
6 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +1.475s
7 Tomass Stolcermanis Prema +1.491s
8 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema +1.492s
9 Dion Gowda Prema +1.533s
10 Rashid Al Dhaheri Prema +1.558s
Race 2 grid
1 Slater 1m57.666s
2 Nakamura +0.318s
3 Beeton +0.582s
4 Gustav Jonsson Van Amersfoort Racing +0.657s
5 Emanuele Olivieri AKM Motorsport +1.188s
6 Everett Stack PHM Racing +1.539s
7 Al Dhaheri +1.631s
8 Gowda +1.737s
9 Pradel +1.792s
10 Luka Sammalisto R-ace GP +1.804s
Race 3 grid
1 Slater 1m59.267s
2 Sammalisto +0.332s
3 Pradel +0.608s
4 Powell +0.642s
5 Francot +0.740s
6 Beeton +0.832s
7 Nakamura +1.007s
8 Gowda +1.082s
9 Al Dhaheri +1.131s
10 Bohra +1.150s