
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 |