Photo: ACI Sport
Italian Formula 4 returns to a three-race format at Monza this weekend, and Prema drivers Sebastian Wheldon and Kean Nakamura Berta will be starting those races from pole.
The first 15-minute qualifying session set race one’s grid, and Van Amersfoort Racing was the team to beat initially.
Maximilian Popov and Alexander Ruta traded fastest laps, bringing the pace down to 1m53.456s. When Prema’s Newman Chi beat VAR’s Dante Vinci by 0.273 seconds to move to the top, the VAR drivers did not have a chance to respond due to red flags.
After the restart, Popov returned to the top with a 1m52.844s. He only held that place for 26s before Prema’s Sasha Bondarev recorded a new 1m52.448s benchmark. On his next lap, Bondarev improved by 0.043s but not far behind him was Wheldon and when he crossed the line he went fastest by 0.371s to claim his maiden series pole.
Bondarev later got within 0.027s of Wheldon, and US Racing’s Gabriel Gomez was also within 0.1s of pole. Chi qualified fourth, 0.184s slower than Wheldon, and championship leader Nakamura was 0.714s off the pace down in 13th. A second split the top 16 drivers.
Q2, which set race two’s grid, played out in a similar way. Popov, Vinci and Ruta were fastest at first, but this time their stronghold over the top places was broken by Jenzer Motorsport’s Bart Harrison.
He set a 1m52.52s, and held top spot for half a minute before Chi beat him by 0.187s. Wheldon was in Chi’s slipstream, which helped him set a 1m52.234s to move ahead by 0.099s.
On his next lap, Wheldon improved again to 1m51.962s, but missed out on pole as Nakamura beat him by 0.004s. There were still over 10 minutes to go, but neither driver could find any more pace.
US’s Andrija Kostic qualified third, 0.122s off pole, beating his team-mate Luka Sammalisto by 0.007s and Chi by 0.009s. Popov repeated his sixth place from Q1, and Prema’s Salim Hanna Hernandez was seventh.
Despite being within half a second of pole, Bondarev was down in 13th place.
Drivers’ second-best laptimes from either of the two sessions were used for race three, and set up another close outcome.
Nakamura claimed his seventh pole of the season thanks to a 1m52.042s set in Q2, beating Wheldon’s 1m52.070s from Q1. Sammalisto was just 0.091s away from pole in third, and Hanna was fourth. Bondarev was the next best driver whose laptime came from Q1, and was classified seventh.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Sebastian Wheldon Prema 1m52.034s
2 Sasha Bondarev Prema +0.027s
3 Gabriel Gomez US Racing +0.091s
4 Newman Chi Prema +0.184s
5 Luka Sammalisto US Racing +0.210s
6 Maximilian Popov Van Amersfoort Racing +0.225s
7 Andrija Kostic US Racing +0.409s
8 Salim Hanna Hernandez Prema +0.416s
9 Kabir Anurag US Racing +0.559s
10 Dante Vinci Van Amersfoort Racing +0.612s
Race 2 grid
1 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema 1m51.958s
2 Wheldon +0.004s
3 Kostic +0.122s
4 Sammalisto +0.129s
5 Chi +0.131s
6 Popov +0.198s
7 Hanna +0.213s
8 Enea Frey Jenzer Motorsport +0.336s
9 Anurag +0.357s
10 Bart Harrison Jenzer Motorsport +0.425s
Race 3 grid
1 Nakamura 1m52.042s
2 Wheldon +0.028s
3 Sammalisto +0.091s
4 Hanna +0.246s
5 Popov +0.254s
6 Chi +0.291s
7 Bondarev +0.363s
8 Harrison +0.453s
9 David Cosma Cristofor PHM Racing +0.548s
10 Vinci +0.553s