Nakamura-Berta completes perfect start to Italian F4 season

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Kean Nakamura-Berta completed a hat-trick of wins in the opening round of the Italian Formula 4 championship at Misano with a dominant victory in the final race.

He ran out a comfortable winner, taking the flag 4.28 seconds ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maximilan Popov to round off a perfect weekend, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process.

“It’s been a dream start,” he told Formula Scout. “I tried to be as faultless as possible. Taking pole overall was really good and then I managed all the races, looking after the tyres in the heats and then in the final giving a few pushes towards the end to manage the gap to everyone else, which proved our race pace.

“It gives us loads of momentum going into round two and onwards,” he said.

Nakamura-Berta once again timed his launch to perfection, but fellow front-row man Sebastian Wheldon bogged down slightly allowing Salim Hanna and Popov through into the first corner.

Hanna immediately came under pressure from Van Amersfoort Racing driver Popov, who drafted past down the back straight to finish lap one in second, with Nakamura-Berta already over a second to the good out front.

Nakamura-Berta’s pace in the lead was unrelenting, posting a series of fastest laps to extend his lead over Popov.

Hanna, in turn, was over two seconds back in third after five laps with a train of cars in his slipstream, headed now by R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri, who had nipped past Wheldon into turn 14, with Kabir Anurag (US Racing) just behind them. Prema pair Tomass Stolcermanis and Sasha Bondarev were pushing hard to join the back of the group.

Turn eight was proving particularly troublesome for track limits with race control reporting multiple violations with the first black-and-white warning flags being shown as early as the sixth lap. Ultimately, Nathaniel Berreby and Luka Sammalisto each managed to pick up three separate five-second penalties for repeated infringements.

Nakamura-Berta galloped away out front, extending his lead to over two seconds with another fastest lap on the seventh tour, with Popov equally comfortable in second.

Hanna managed to shake off Olivieri who held off a late charge from Wheldon to take fourth.

Stolcermanis passed Anurag for sixth on lap 10 with Bondarev running over the kerbs as he looked in vain to follow him through.

Race results (17 laps)