Mucke’s Jonas Ried fastest in pre-event Italian F4 test at Vallelunga

Photo: ACI Sport

Mucke Motorsport’s Jonas Ried was the surprise pacesetter in Italian Formula 4’s pre-event test at Vallelunga on Friday.

The German driver was quickest in the four-hour morning session, setting a 1m33.766s lap that put him 0.091 seconds clear of team-mate Joshua Duerksen in second place. There were five more drivers within two tenths of Ried’s pace.

Testing began with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Bence Valint on top, and with a lap that very close to the ultimate pace. His 1m33.881s personal best was set within the first half-hour, and wasn’t beaten for another three quarters of an hour when Duerksen went just 0.024s faster as the track temperature got higher.

Another hour after that and Ried went top, and the positions remained unchnaged until the end of the morning as a red flag shortened the session by over half an hour and left DR Formula’s Pedro Perino unable to return to the pits.

VAR and the returning US Racing were quick off the mark at the start of the afternoon, but with track temperature now at a scorching 57°C it made improving on the morning pace very difficult.

Joshua Dufek set the early benchmarks, improving from a 1m34.615s to a 1m34.067s across the first hour before VAR team-mate Ollie Bearman jumped ahead with a 1m34.051s lap.

That remained the session’s fastest lap for two hours until the track cooled down, and AKM Motorsport’s Lorenzo Patrese took over at the top by 0.009s with 46 minutes to go.

Duerksen and Bearman bettered that as temperatures dipped further, and Bearman ended up back ahead with a 1m33.869s lap that lifted him to third overall for the day. Duerksen was the only other in the afternoon to lap sub-1m34s, while US’s Tim Tramnitz rose from 25th to 10th overall and Patrese from 28th to 11th.

Test results