Nakamura wins opening Italian F4 race of weekend at Vallelunga

Photo: ACI Sport

Kean Nakamura Berta was the winner of the first Italian Formula 4 heat race at Vallelunga, for drivers in groups B and C.

The points leader started from pole, ahead of US Racing’s Luka Sammalisto, Prema team-mate Tomass Stolcermanis, US’s Maxim Rehm and Gabriel Gomez, and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Marcus Saeter.

Stolcermanis passed Sammalisto at turn two on the opening lap, then it was three-wide into turn four and Stolcermanis moved back ahead. He defended hard on the next straight down to turn seven, where several drivers went off, and two corners later VAR’s Alexander Ruta drove into the back of US’s Kabir Anurag and lost his front wing, meaning both pitted.

Gomez passed Rehm in the turn four squabble, and Saeter dropped behind Jenzer Motorsport’s Artem Severiukhin and Prema’s Salim Hanna Hernandez. Those two began lap two battling, and Hanna regained the place he had lost to Severiukhin, who started ninth.

At the back of the field, brief contact between Viola Formula Racing’s drivers led to Jenzer’s Bart Harrison then having nowhere to go at turn seven and spinning around Emir Tanju.

Stolcermanis closed in on Nakamura, a headwind giving the leader a harder time in the opening sector of the lap, then on lap three the safety car came out as contact led to Maffi Racing’s Kornelia Olkucka spinning off into the gravel.

Prema’s Sasha Bondarev had to pit with front wing damage, Harrison went in again too for his front-left wheel to be inspected, and racing did not resume until lap seven.

Nakamura nailed the return to racing speeds to have a 0.7-second gap as the restart lap began, then maintained that sort of margin until Sammalisto crashed out of third.

He took the fastest lap on lap 11, then on the next tour ploughed off at turn 12. The safety car was summoned on lap 13, and led the field until the final few corners of the race. While the top five returned to racing speeds when they were released, Severiukhin stayed at the safety car’s pace so there was a 26s gap between fifth and sixth.

Saeter finished seventh, and Jenzer’s Enea Frey was eighth are holding off an attack from Maffi’s Kirill Kutskov on the first restart. Kutskov’s mirrors were then filled by Prema’s Newman Chi, who went side-by-side with him into turn seven on lap eight.

A small lock-up hampered Kutskov on the inside, and Chi’s outside line then became the inside for the direction change of turn eight, where he got through. After his early pitstop, Bondarev recovered to 17th place.

Race results (15 laps)