Home Formula 4Italian F4 British F4 race-winner Oliver Gray tops day one of Italian F4 Mugello test

British F4 race-winner Oliver Gray tops day one of Italian F4 Mugello test

by Ida Wood

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Oliver Gray led a Van Amersfoort Racing one-two on the opening day of Italian Formula 4 testing at Mugello.

The British F4 race-winner is evaluating a full-time move to the continent for 2022, having got a taste of the Italian championship in the last two rounds of the 2021 season with BVM Racing.

Gray topped the fourth and final session of Friday’s running, as the track got increasingly grippy through the day. He set the pace by just 0.014 seconds over Nicolas Todt protege Martinius Stenshorne, while 0.135s back was US Racing’s Alex Dunne.

Stenshorne had topped the second session of the morning, while Brando Badoer in the third of VAR’s cars was fastest in the first afternoon session but failed to improve on his laptime from then when the cars returned to track and so he ended the day fourth overall.

Charlie Wurz, third fastest for Prema in session three, also didn’t improve and he rounded out the day’s top five.

Emmo Fittipaldi made sure all four of VAR’s cars were in the top six, and put him ahead of four Prema-run cars as Iron Lynx’s Maya Weug was seventh and karters James Wharton, Rafael Camara and Tuukka Taponen completed the top 10.

Ferrari junior Wharton will race for Prema next year, and headed Gray in the day’s opening test session, while Taponen is likely to make F4 appearances in 2022 but will focus on karting at first.

There were 25 drivers on track in the test, with Jenzer Motorsport opting to keep the identity of its two drivers secret.

Test results

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Oliver Gray Van Amersfoort Racing 1m47.970s 71
2 Martinius Stenshorne Van Amersfoort Racing 1m47.984s +0.014s 69
3 Alex Dunne US Racing 1m48.105s +0.135s 63
4 Brando Badoer Van Amersfoort Racing 1m48.175s +0.205s 61
5 Charlie Wurz Prema 1m48.231s +0.261s 58
6 Emmo Fittipaldi Van Amersfoort Racing 1m48.251s +0.281s 69
7 Maya Weug Iron Lynx 1m48.338s +0.368s 71
8 James Wharton Prema 1m48.375s +0.405s 62
9 Rafael Camara Prema 1m48.382s +0.412s 58
10 Tukka Taponen Prema 1m48.650s +0.680s 56
11 Nikhil Bohra R-ace GP 1m48.664s +0.694s 59
12 Eron Rexhepi Jenzer Motorsport 1m48.715s +0.745s 54
13 Marcus Amand US Racing 1m48.842s +0.872s 63
14 Alfio Spina BWR Motorsports 1m48.996s +1.026s 63
15 Aiden Neate R-ace GP 1m49.091s +1.121s 65
16 Ricardo Escotto Cram Motorsport 1m49.469s +1.499s 68
17 Anshul Gandhi Cram Motorsport 1m49.547s +1.577s 66
18 #24 Jenzer Motorsort 1m49.553s +1.583s 61
19 Sohil Shah Iron Lynx 1m49.887s +1.917s 57
20 Ivan Domingues Iron Lynx 1m50.077s +2.107s 62
21 Yash Aradhya Iron Lynx 1m50.255s +2.285s 53
22 Frederick Lund AKM Motorsport 1m50.605s +2.635s 63
23 Nicola Abrusci AKM Motorsport 1m50.630s +2.660s 68
24 Victoria Blokhina Cram Motorsport 1m51.419s +3.449s 60
25 Kinga Wojcik AS Motorsport 1m52.201s +4.231s 52