Lindblad pips Badoer in Italian F4’s pre-event Monza test

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Arvid Lindblad was fastest by just 0.008 seconds in Italian Formula 4’s four-hour pre-event test session at Monza on Thursday.

US Racing’s Kacper Sztuka led the way in the first 45 minutes, setting a 1m52.947s to sit 0.015s ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer. Prema duo Tuukka Taponen and Lindblad were third and fourth, 0.135s and 0.215s back respectively.

Lindblad moved to the top a few minutes later, setting a 1m52.756s that would go unbeaten to the chequered flag. Badoer set a 1m52.764s to go second fastest, and that lap was also not bettered in the remaining 190 minutes of track action.

Sztuka and Taponen were shuffled into third and fourth, and remained there all the way through to when the session was stopped with 16 minutes to go with red flags after Finn Wiebelhaus got into trouble.

The German’s main programme this year is French F4, but he has already made an Italian F4 outing with AS Motorsport and will race this weekend for Jenzer Motorsport.

Green flags waved again and drivers did start to improve in the final five minutes. Many could beat Lindblad’s first sector time, but were then several tenths of a second back through the remaining sectors.

The top 10 had gone unchanged for over three hours bar VAR’s Jack Beeton going ninth fastest with 90 minutes to go, and there was finally another personal best set when Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu went seventh with 65 seconds left on the clock.

Taponen improved by 0.052s to go from fourth to third, then five of the top seven on the timesheet bettered Lindblad in sector one in the final minute of the test but not one of them improved their laptimes.

The next two improvers come the chequered flag were Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi and Matteo Quintarelli in 19th and 25th respectively.

NACAM F4 racer Diego de la Torre drove for AKM Motorsport in the test session, and he will be making his Italian F4 debut with the team this weekend.

Test results