Kean Nakamura-Berta is Italian F4 champion as Wheldon wins again

Photo: ACI Sport

Kean Nakamura-Berta clinched the Italian Formula 4 championship after rival Gabriel Gomez was unable to start race two at Misano, which Sebastian Wheldon won.

Gomez had been due to start his first heat race of the weekend from pole position, but his car came to a halt on the out lap to the grid, had to be towed back to the pits and would not take the start, with an alternator failure reportedly to blame.

Given that Nakamura-Berta only needed to score one point to secure the title even if Gomez could win all four remaining races, the US Racing driver’s problems effectively made Nakamura-Berta champion before the race even started. Gomez did eventually manage to join the race for one lap before pitting again.

Wheldon effectively inherited pole position and led the field away at the start of the race in front of his Prema team-mates Newman Chi and Andrea Dupe.

Nakamura-Berta lost a place at the start to Kabir Anurag, but when Anurag then made contact trying to attack Maximilian Popov, the champion-elect passed them both to make it a Prema 1-2-3-4.

Wheldon pulled away out front to take his second win of the day by just under four seconds, and move up past Gomez into second in the standings.

Nakamura-Berta passed Dupe for third and caught Chi, who fended off the mid-race pressure from his team-mate to finish second.

Kirill Kutskov climbed up to fifth place early on for Maffi Racing and then managed to break the Prema dominance at the front of the field by passing Dupe and score his best ever finish of fourth. Compatriot Popov followed him through for fifth, with Dupe just managing to hold off Emanuele Olivieri for sixth.

Race results (17 laps)