Home Formula 4Italian F4 French F4 leader Giltaire tops Italian F4 test at Monza

French F4 leader Giltaire tops Italian F4 test at Monza

by Ida Wood

Photo: KSP Reportages

French Formula 4 points leader Evan Giltaire set the pace in Italian F4 testing at Monza this week.

The test began on Monday morning with Carl Bennett, running on the Hankook tyres used in the Spanish F4 championship rather than the Pirellis of Italian F4, initially setting the pace.

Prema’s large group of drivers then knocked several seconds off the early benchmarks and James Wharton led with a 1m58.021s lap after the first hour of action. His team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri brought the pace down to 1m54.494s in the second hour, then later on Giltaire impressed to set a 1m52.554s.

That put him 0.223 seconds ahead of Wharton and 0.250s up on Al Dhaheri, who was one of six drivers who failed to improve in later sessions. Among that six was Prema’s Niko Lacorte, who crashed and had to miss the rest of the test.

BVM Racing’s Alfio Spina was fastest at first in the afternoon, then started to trade top spot with Giltaire as each found more pace. The session ended with Giltaire setting the fastest lap of the test, a 1m51.987s, and leading Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu by 0.542s.

Only four other drivers – Wharton, Al Dhaheri, Jenzer Motorsport’s Ariel Elkin and Spina – were in a second of the pace.

The top two and Elkin were among seven drivers whose personal best laps came in that session, with that list also including Prema’s Aurelia Nobels, who was returning from injury, Ginetta Junior leader Freddie Slater who was testing with Van Amersfoort Racing, and karter William Go at R-ace.

The action resumed on Tuesday morning and Bennett was again the early benchmark before the Prema drivers took to track.

Ugochukwu and Wharton was were knocking a tenth or two off each other’s benchmarks before late on Spina set a 1m52.593s to go fastest by 0.040s over Wharton and 0.097s over Ugochukwu. It was the closest session so far, with 0.907s covering the top 14.

The afternoon followed a similar pattern, with Slater very briefly on top before team-mate Jack Beeton went fastest and then Ugochukwu and Wharton started trading first place.

However the pace did not get close to previous sessions, with Tuukka Taponen’s timesheet-topping 1m52.740s lap still 0.753s off Giltaire’s day one pace.

Cram Motorsport’s Flavio Olivieri, VAR’s Ismail Akhmed and Giacomo Pedrini were the only drivers to improve their pace in the final session.

There were also four Euroformula cars on track through the test.

Test results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Evan Giltaire R-ace GP 1m51.987s 159
2 Ugo Ugochukwu Prema 1m52.511s +0.524s 151
3 Alfio Spina BVM Racing 1m52.593s +0.606s 144
4 James Wharton Prema 1m52.633s +0.646s 164
5 Tuukka Taponen Prema 1m52.695s +0.708s 163
6 Rashid Al Dhaheri Prema 1m52.804s +0.817s 164
7 Ariel Elkin Jenzer Motorsport 1m52.852s +0.865s 140
8 Andrea Frassineti BVM Racing 1m52.911s +0.924s 151
9 Aurelia Nobels Prema 1m53.061s +1.074s 148
10 Raphael Narac R-ace GP 1m53.070s +1.083s 167
11 #163 AKM Motorsport 1m53.209s +1.222s 153
12 Frederik Lund AKM Motorsport 1m53.234s +1.247s 147
13 Bianca Bustamante Prema 1m53.241s +1.254s 138
14 Flavio Olivieri Cram Motorsport 1m53.316s +1.329s 165
15 Freddie Slater Van Amersfoort Racing 1m53.343s +1.356s 188
16 Jack Beeton Van Amersfoort Racing 1m53.442s +1.455s 198
17 Niko Lacorte Prema 1m53.544s +1.557s 30
18 Ismail Akhmed Van Amersfoort Racing 1m53.577s +1.590s 181
19 #61 AS Motorsport 1m53.658s +1.671s 147
20 Matteo Quintarelli R-ace GP 1m53.708s +1.721s 168
21 Guido Luchetti Airflow Racing 1m53.743s +1.756s 137
22 William Go R-ace GP 1m53.791s +1.804s 167
23 Giacomo Pedrini Newman Motorsport 1m54.199s +2.212s 185
24 Tina Hausmann AKM Motorsport 1m54.395s +2.408s 147
25 Carl Bennett GRS 1m54.583s +2.596s 140
26 Luca Viisoreanu Real Racing Team 1m55.087s +3.100s 171
27 Chloe Chong Prema 1m55.397s +3.410s 154