Gomez wins as Nakamura’s unbeaten Italian F4 run ends in lap one hit

Photo: ACI Sport

Gabriel Gomez won the final Italian Formula 4 race at Vallelunga, as Kean Nakamura Berta’s unbeaten run came to an end.

Nakamura, Sebastian Wheldon and Tomass Stolcermanis formed a Prema 1-2-3 at the front of the grid ahead of Gomez, but Stolcermanis had an extremely slow start. Gomez then slipstreamed into the lead at turn four as Nakamura lost his front wing on the rear of Wheldon’s car.

Wheldon joined Stolcermanis outside of the top 20, with the latter then retiring as multiple crashes on the run to turn seven led to the safety car being summoned. Nakamura and Jenzer Motorsport’s Enea Frey pitted and dropped to 28th and 29th, then on lap two Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maximilian Popov pitted from fifth.

When racing resumed on lap five, US Racing driver Gomez led R-ace GP’s Alex Powell and Emanuele Olivieri, Prema’s Salim Hanna Hernandez, VAR’s Marcus Saeter and Jenzer Motorsport’s Bart Harrison (from 16th on the grid), Artem Severiukhin and Teo Schropp.

The top three gapped Hanna, as US’s Luka Sammalisto challenged Maffi Racing’s Kirill Kutskov for 10th after starting 22nd.

Gomez’s pace was unmatchable and he won the 15-lap race by 3.584 seconds. Olivieri was all over Powell through lap eight, and passed his team-mate at turn four a lap later. They remained close, and Hanna gradually closed back in.

There was lots of pressure from Hanna through the final three laps, and he went around the outside of Powell ar turn four on the final four. Powell tried fighting back, making a turn eight dive that led to contact but not regaining third.

Harrison impressively kept up his defences the whole race, while Schropp lost out to VAR’s Alexander Ruta on lap six and to Sammalisto on lap seven.

Sammalisto had cleared Kutskov at turn eight the previous lap, but the latter was able to remain defensice through the rest of the race.

Nakamura was up to 22nd within a lap following the restart, entered the top 20 on lap eight, was 18th two laps later and then joined the battle for 14th after US’s Kabir Anurag (who started 35th) made contact with Prema’s Newman Chi and spun when trying to overtake him for 13th.

When Prema’s Sasha Bondarev made contact with Kutskov at turn eight to finally get past him on lap 13, it opened the door for Nakamura too and he overtook Bondarev later on for 11th. Wheldon progressed no further than 26th, and Anurag finished 18th.

Race results (15 laps)