Nakamura-Berta fastest in qualifying for Italian F4 opener at Misano

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema team-mates Kean Nakamura-Berta and Salim Hanna topped the split qualifying sessions for the opening round of the Italian Formula 4 championship at Misano.

Courtesy of setting the fastest overall time, Nakamura-Berta will start races two and three from pole position, while Hanna will start the first race from the front of the grid. The 41-car field will be split into three groups – A, B and C – with each group contesting two of the three heat races, before the best-placed drivers contest Sunday evening’s fourth race.

Qualifying was split into two groups, allocated according to lots drawn by the drivers on Friday morning, to set the grids for the first three races of the weekend.

The second group appeared significantly stronger on paper, and so it proved, with seven drivers beating Hanna’s time from the first group.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maximilian Popov set the initial pace in the first group, going top halfway through the 20-minute session. As times began to fall, Alpine junior Kabir Anurag briefly moved to the top of the times, before an improvement from Hanna saw the Colombian go fastest with a lap in 1m36.120s, 0.047s quicker than Prema team-mate Newman Chi.

With just under four minutes remaining, Hanna was the first, and ultimately only, driver in the group to dip below the 1m36s mark, extending his advantage over Popov who had moved up to second position ahead of Chi.

They were followed by a trio of US Racing entries, with Luka Sammalisto ahead of Anurag and Maxim Rehm.

The R-ace GP pair of Alex Powell and Emanuele Olivieri immediately jumped to the front of the second group, before the Prema quartet headed by Nakamura-Berta asserted themselves at the front.

US Racing’s Gabriel Gomez was the next to improve, going fastest with a time of 1m35.833s but his lead was short-lived, as Nakamura-Berta, Sebastian Wheldon and Sasha Bondarev, regained the top three slots with seven minutes remaining.

The Prema drivers continued to improve their times, with Wheldon moving to the front with a 1m35.490s before Nakamura-Berta regained the top spot by 0.065s on the next tour.

In a thrilling finale, the top four all improved in the first sector on the final laps but only Nakamura-Berta managed to maintain his pace for the full lap, taking the flag with a lap of 1m35.326s to pip Wheldon by 0.092s.

Tomass Stolcermanis took third, with F4 Middle East champion Olivieri splitting the Prema hegemony at the front, beating Bondarev to fourth in the group by just 0.001s.

Formula Winter Series champion Gomez had to settle for sixth, with Mercedes junior Powell relegated to seventh in the group.

Qualifying results