Craigie wins race one at Monza to move closer to E4 title

Photo: ACI Sport

R-ace GP’s Kenzo Craigie claimed victory in a heavily-interrupted opening race of the E4 finale at Monza to extend his championship lead to 34 points over US Racing’s Luka Sammalisto with only Sunday’s two races remaining.

As is unfortunately typical for Formula 4 races at Monza, over half the racing laps were completed behind the safety car, with the race finishing under caution.

The Mercedes-AMG F1 junior took the lead on the fifth lap with a stunning move around the outside of polesitter Ary Bansal at the Parabolica before defending the position into the first chicane.

However, Craigie had to fend off a late challenge from US Racing’s Iacopo Martinese, who had worked his way through to second from ninth on the grid, including passing both Prema’s Kingsley Zheng and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Alex Ruta in a single move to take second.

On the last restart, despite Craigie weaving down the pit straight to try to break the tow, Martinese drew alongside before locking up under braking for the first chicane, with both drivers cutting the corner and rejoining.

Ruta claimed the final podium position having also moved up through the field from his fourth-row grid slot.

Bansal endured a difficult race, gradually sliding down to eighth before a collision with his US Racing team-mate Ludovico Busso dropped him to the tail of the field.

The first of three lenghty safety car periods began almost immediately when Lyuboslav Ruykov made contact with race two poleman, Augustus Toniolo.

At the restart, Zheng managed to get between Bansal and Craigie into the Rettifilo chicane before trying to go aorund the outside of the Indian into the Roggia chicane. However, he was forced to cut the corner allowing Craigie to repass him around the outside of the Lesmo.

Zheng held on to take fourth ahead of US Racing’s Oleksandr Savinkov who came out on top of a duel with Teo Borenstein of Jenzer Motorsport. However, the Czech driver dropped back to 12th at the finish following contact between the two cars and was subsequently given a five-second penalty for overtaking under yellow flags, dropping him to 15th.

PHM Racing’s Roland Kuklane came home sixth ahead of Ferrari Academy driver Filippo Sala on his single-seater debut for Prema. The team’s other debutant, Victoria Farfus finished 17th.

A 10-second pemalty for McLaren junior Christian Costoya, who took a clean sweep in the most recent round of the Italian F4 championship, for contact with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Lima, promoted the otherwise invisible Sammalisto to ninth, with plenty of work to do if he is to emulate Kean Nakamura-Berta’s double championship success from 2025.

Race results (13 laps)

Fastest lap: Craigie, 1m54.386s

Championship standings
1 Craigie 168   2 Sammalisto 134   3 Aksoy 112   4 Savinkov 96  5 Consani 91   6 Bondarev 78   7 Costoya 75   8 Bansal 73   9 Killion 66  10 Robinson 64