Photo: ACI Sport
McLaren junior Christian Costoya took his maiden Italian Formula 4 victory in a thrilling conclusion to the second race at Misano as the polesitter Teo Borenstein and race one winner Ary Bansal collided.
Jenzer Motorsport’s Borenstein led away from the start, defending robustly against race one winner, US Racing’s Bansal. Borenstein was using the full width of the track and more as he held back the quicker Bansal, weaving down the straights to break the slipstream.
The battle for the lead allowed Prema’s Costoya and US Racing’s Edu Robinson to form a lead quartet as the race headed into its final laps.
Borenstein was slow out of the final turn as the leaders started their last lap, allowing Bansal to attack around the outside of Turn 1 which becomes the inside of Turn 2. As Borenstein fought back, the pair ran wide allowing Costoya to sweep around the outside and into the lead.
With Costoya out front, Borenstein and Bansal made contact at the next corner, collecting Robinson in the process. Bansal pulled off, his chances of a double win dashed, while Robinson and Borenstein limped to the flag in seventh and 23rd places respectively.
All this promoted R-ace GP’s Kenzo Craigie and Jenzer Motorsport’s Elia Weiss to the podium. The pair had worked their way to the front of a five-car battle involving Prema’s Alp Aksoy, Trident’s Augustus Toniolo and US Racing’s Noah Killion.
After a difficult season for the highly-rated Costoya, the Spaniard was naturally overjoyed to take his first win, which he put down to “consistency and tyre management. You could see that towards the end they were struggling a bit more. On the last lap, we tried the move around the outside and unfortunately they crashed on the inside. I think we deserved this win for the amazing job the team is doing. Let’s keep it up.”
Following heavy rain on Friday, which had produced something of a mixed up grid for the three heats, the weather was kinder on Saturday, with blue skies and an air temperature in the mid-20s.
The morning’s first heat, featuring Groups B and C, was a much more subdued affair with Bansal taking a comfortable victory from Aksoy. The Turk, a winner here in the opening race of the season when the series paid its first visit of the year in May, sprinted through to second at the start but was unable to challenge the Indian driver for the win.
Bansal thus claimed his second win of the year. “It was quite good. We managed to get a really good start, but Aksoy also got a good start. From then on, it was just about staying in front and putting in consistent laps, because overtaking here is very difficult,” he said after the race.
A coming-together between front-row starter Trident’s Florentin Hattemer and Dean Pedersen of CRAM Motorsport on lap four brought out the first safety car.
US Racing’s Ludovico Busso inherited third but had to fight off a charging David Walther from Maffi Racing to hold onto the final podium position.
Mercedes-AMG junior Craigie was forced to retire, having run as high as seventh in the early laps.
Championship leader Luca Sammalisto had made up five places on the first lap from his 12th row grid spot but got caught up in an incident, dropping him back to 26th. However, the US Racing driver managed to fight through to 12th at the flag to earn valuable points.
However, with Bansal’s retirement in the second heat, and his nearest challenger, David Cosma-Christofor only able to finish 10th in that race, the impact on Sammalisto’s points advantage was kept to a minimum.