Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Arvid Lindblad and Brando Badoer shared the pole positions in Italian Formula 4 quailfying at Monza.
PHM Racing’s Victoria Blokhina set the first benchmark in Q1 with a 1m57.723s, and Jack Beeton was next to the top with a 1m54.908s.
Seven minutes into the 15-minute session, US Racing’s Kacper Sztuka set a 1m53.874s to move into first place, with Ugo Ugochukwu and Niko Lacorte completing a top three covered by half a second.
Gianmarco Pradel knocked 0.377 seconds off Sztuka’s benchmark, then Ugochukwu cut his advantage to 0.205s with just over six minutes to go.
Moments later Prema duo Tuukka Taponen and James Wharton both bettered Pradel, and with five minutes renaining Brando Badoer split them with a lap just 0.027s slower than Taponen’s.
There was no further change to the top 10 until Badoer set a 1m52.962s with 11 seconds left on the clock to put himself on pole.
Sztuka also improved to move into second place, then Arvid Lindblad went third fastest as the first driver to meet the chequered flag.
Ivan Domingues in fifth and Ugochukwu in seventh were the only others in the top eight to improve on their final lap.
There was a quicker pace in Q2, and Taponen led the way by 0.025s over Doningues halfway through the session with a 1m53.070s.
Lindblad, Badoer and Sztuka then all went faster, with 0.054s covering the trio.
Ugochukwu was next to top the times, doing so with just over five minutes to go by setting a 1m52.654s. The response from Lindblad was a 1m52.522s.
Sztuka moved up to second with 73s left on the clock, getting within 0.091s of Lindblad, and at the end of the session Akshay Bohra went fourth fastest, 0.199s off the top.
Badoer was one of the last to see the chequered flag and he found even more pace, but came 0.065s short of matching Lindblad’s pole-setting pace.
It was another slim margin splitting Lindblad and Badoer on second-best laptimes from the two sessions, with Lindblad earning another pole by just 0.005s. Sztuka was 0.065s back in third, and Uguchukwu’s second-best laptime just a tenth of a second off Lindblad’s. A gap of 0.984s covered the top 24.
Qualifying round-up
Q1 results
1 Brando Badoer VAR 1m52.962s
2 Kacper Sztuka US Racing +0.214s
3 Arvid Lindblad Prema+0.317s
4 Tuukka Taponen Prema +0.320s
5 Ivan Domingues VAR +0.448s
6 James Wharton Prema +0.451s
7 Ugo Ugochukwu Prema +0.484s
8 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +0.534s
9 Niko Lacorte Prema +0.558s
10 Akshay Bohra US Racing +0.615s
Q2 results
1 Lindblad 1m52.522s
2 Badoer +0.065s
3 Sztuka +0.091s
4 Ugochukwu +0.132s
5 Bohra +0.199s
6 Wharton +0.281s
7 Taponen +0.367s
8 Rashid Al Dhaheri Prema +0.445s
9 Alfio Spina BVM Racing +0.544s
10 Domingues +0.573s
Second-best laps
1 Lindblad 1m52.751s
2 Badoer +0.005s
3 Sztuka +0.065s
4 Ugochukwu +0.100s
5 Wharton +0.129s
6 Bohra +0.254s
7 Taponen +0.319s
8 Al Dhaheri +0.351s
9 Spina +0.360s
10 Domingues +0.366s