Photo: ACI Sport
Reigning Formula 4 Central European Zone champion Ethan Ischer will remain with Jenzer Motorsport and in F4 for 2024.
The 17-year-old Swiss will be attacking the Italian F4 championship for a third time, having come a points-free 40th in the standings in 2022 then improving to 29th in 2023 but again scoring no points. In both seasons he raced for Jenzer.
Ischer’s category experience also includes two trips to Spa-Francorchamps in 2022, one in ADAC F4 and the other in Spanish F4 with Sainteloc Racing, then two rounds of last year’s Formula Winter Series which resulted in a top-five finish and 11th in the standings.
“It’s with great pleasure that I extend this collaboration for another season,” said Ischer. “Working with the Jenzer team has been an incredible experience so far, and I’m looking forward to continuing this adventure together. A big thank you to the whole team for their trust and continued support. We look forward to new challenges and successes this season.”
AKM Motorsport meanwhile has signed Emanuele Olivieri, a finalist in the Ferrari Driver Academy’s Scouting World Final and the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy shootout in 2023, who is currently 19th in the FWinter Series standings.
The 15-year-old Italian won the 2022 WSK Final Cup for OK Junior karts, then last year stepped up to OK karts and came fifth in the South Garda Winter Cup, eighth in the WSK Champions Cup, 13th in WSK Super Master Series and 15th in the Champions of the Future series.
Although he lost the two shootouts he competed in, Olivieri’s F4 move has come about after he won the Italian federation’s annual Supercorso Federale award in November. His career is guided by his three-time Le Mans 24 Hours-winning godfather Rinaldo Capello.
Olivieri’s Italian F4 team-mate will be Ukrainian racer Alexander Savinkov, who also spent 2023 karting. He came 59th in the British chamionship for Rotax Junior karts, and was 56th in the Rotax Max Euro Trophy for Rotax Senior karts. Like Olivieri, he made his single-seater debut this month in the FWinter Series and after two rounds is 32nd in the standings.
After a year of testing, the all-Romanian combination of Real Racing Team and its driver Luca Viisoreanu will join the Italian F4 and Euro 4 grids for 2024. Both parties have previously established themselves in karting, and will now race in single-seaters for the first time.
“As a former go-kart and single-seater driver myself, I’m really thrilled that after many years of working our path up the ladder of motorsport we are finally launching our first campaign at this level,” said team founder Constantin Raileanu. “It is now up to us to learn as quick as possible and to do our best to achieve our goals.”
Viisoreanu was runner-up in the Romanian Karting Masters for ROK Junior karts in 2021, and on X30 Junior karts was 12th in Trofeo Andrea Margutti and 13th in Trofeo delle Industrie.
Van Amersfoort Racing now has a three-strong Euro 4 and Italian F4 line-up with the addition of Serbian karting graduate Andrija Kostic.