Nakamura-Berta takes dominant win in second Italian F4 race

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Kean Nakamura-Berta cruised to a comfortable victory in the second Italian Formula 4 race of the weekend at Misano.

Nakamura-Berta controlled the pace out front, gradually extending his lead after an early safety car, while his rivals fought over the other podium places. Tomass Stolcermanis finally fought his way past Maximilian Popov in the closing stages to grab second after a race-long duel but finished four seconds behind his team-mate.

After an extra formation lap, caused by Viola Formula Racing’s Arthur Lorimier rolling to a halt on the track on the first attempt, Nakamura-Berta made the best start, as fellow front-row starter Salim Hanna immediately came under pressure from Prema team-mate Tomass Stolcermanis.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maksimilian Popov took advantage of the intra-team battle to slot into second through the first chicane, with the Latvian taking third despite being forced to put two wheels on the grass.

Two separate incidents at the back of the field brought out a safety car to neutralise the race.

Nakamura-Berta made a perfect restart to pull away from Popov, extending the gap to over one second within a lap.

R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri demoted Hanna to fourth, over a second behind Stolcermanis who was on Popov’s tail as he looked to find a way through to second.

Luka Sammalisto had been heading the next group but pulled off to the side of the track on lap seven, promoting his US racing team-mates Gabriel Gomez and Kabir Anurag to sixth and seventh, with Artem Severiukhin heading a Jenzer triumvirate in the remaining points-scoring positions.

Out front, Nakamura-Berta was flying, extending the gap to over two seconds at the end of lap eight.

Behind him, the battle between Popov and Stolcermanis had allowed Olivieri and Hanna back onto their tail, the four running nose-to-tail.

Stolcermanis was on Popov’s tail down the back straight, diving to the inside of turn 16, the final corner, to take second, as Popov briefly ran wide. Olivieri was also having to defend forcefully from Hanna, as he simultaneously tried to attack the slowing Popov.

Nakamura-Berta continued his untroubled run out front, maintaining a pace that his rivals could not match, before taking the flag almost four seconds ahead of Stolcermanis, with Popov a further second back in third.

The remaining points places remained unchanged to the finish, as Mercedes junior Alex Powell just failed to grab tenth place at the flag, despite setting the fastest lap of the race on the final tour.

Race results (15 laps)