Photo: PHM Racing
The 2024 Italian Formula 4 grid continues to grow, with two weeks until the season begins at Misano.
There are now 37 drivers confirmed to be appearing on the grid this year, and five teams running more than four cars each.
PHM Racing has grown its line-up to five cars with the additions of Kamal Mrad, Andrej Petrovic, Maximilian Popov and Everett Stack, who will all also be racing for the team in the Euro 4 championship.
Mrad, Popov and Stack represented PHM in F4 United Arab Emirates at the start of this year, coming 28th, 27th and 34th respectively in the standings.
Stack did two thirds of the 2023 United States F4 season and failed to score, and Mrad combined karts with cars last year. He did one Italian F4 round and one Euro 4 round with AKM Motorsport before embarking on an extensive testing programme.
F4 UAE was Popov’s first taste of single-seater racing. In 2021 he won the Italian championship for OK Junior karts, and came third in the Champions of the Future series. He has spent the last two years in the senior OK category, and started off on a high by finishing second in the WSK Champions Cup. Results were harder to come by after that, although he ended 2022 by coming ninth in the WSK Final Cup and he was seventh in the 2023 South Garda Winter Cup.
Petrovic began his single-seater career two months ago in Saudi Arabian F4, and he took four wins en route to becoming championship runner-up.
Jenzer Motorsport now has five Italian F4 entries following the addition of 2023 F4 Central European Zone runner-up Reno Francot and Chinese racer Shimo Zhang who contested the Italian and CEZ F4 finales with the team last year, then got more car racing experience in the F4 South East Asia season opener. Three fifth places are his best results in F4 so far.
Real Racing Team has made Adrei Duna its second signing, with the Romanian switching championships after coming 17th in French F4 last year, while AS Motorsport has confirmed its place on the grid by signing Edu Robinson. He is a graduate of entry-level sportscar series Ginetta Junior, where he came 11th as a rookie in 2023 with one podium.