Photo: ACI Sport
Kean Nakamura and Emanuele Olivieri shared the pole positions in Italian Formula 4 qualifying at Barcelona.
Red flags ended Q1 early, but before then almost all drivers completed five laps and only missed out on the opportunity for one more lap (which as the later session showed did not lead to many improvements).
Maffi Racing’s Nathanael Berreby was fastest through the first 10 minutes of Q1, then US Racing’s Jan Koller set a more repsentative pace when he posted a 1m43.401s.
A few seconds later his team-mate Gabriel Gomez beat that by 0.282 seconds.
Prema driver Nakamura then smashed Gomez’s benchmark with a 1m42.677s. It soon became a battle with R-ace’s Olivieri for pole, and he set a 1m42.352s with four minutes left of the session’s scheduled duration.
Nakamura improved to 1m42.115s on his next lap, then Olivieri broke into the 1m41s when he next crossed the line. Nakamura was able to reclaim top spot, setting a 1m41.864s to move back ahead by 0.118s.
Red flags then waved, at which point Prema’s Salim Hanna Hernandez was third and Gomez was fourth. Prema’s Sebastian Wheldon was a non-improver late on but was fifth fastest, ahead of Jenzer Motorsport’s Artem Severiukhin who was the last driver within half a second of pole.
A second covered the top 24, with R-ace’s Alex Powell regular frontrunner down in 15th.
Berreby was quickest early on again in Q2, leading his team-mates, then AS Motorsport’s Mathilda Paatz went fastest with a 1m44.4s lap approaching the session’s halfway mark.
She improved to 1m43.839s to remain ahead, but entering the final five minutes was shuffled way down the order. Olivieri posted a 1m41.723s to lead Gomez by 0.217s, with Powell and team-mate Emily Cotty setting 1m42.2s to be third and fourth.
Next up were US’s Luka Sammalisto and Andrija Kostic, and with four minutes to go PHM Racing’s David Cosma Cristofor went seventh fastest.
Prema’s drivers were completing their laps later than their rivals Nakamura got within 0.067s of Olivieri with three-and-a-half minutes remaining of Q2 and three of his team-mates also beat Powell.
Then Van Amersfoort Racing’s Maximilian Popov, who went third fastest with a 1m41.815s.
Olivieri and Gomez improved to 1m41.4s and Cotty went fifth fastest next time by, then when Prema’s drivers came through two minutes from the end.
Cotty was demoted to ninth, and improving in third and fourth were Nakamura and Hanna.
Most drivers did not improve on their next efforts, with Wheldon an exception but remaining in fifth place. Popov ofted to pit before the end, then after the chequered flag the only drivers setting personal bests were outside the top 10. This included Powell, who was only 13th fastest and 0.647s off pole. A second covered the top 24.
Drivers’ second-best laptimes from the two sessions set race three’s grid, earning Olivieri another pole by 0.111s over Wheldon. Nakamura and Popov were also within 0.2s of pole, with Gomez and Hanna closely matched in fifth and sixth. This time Powell made the top 10.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema 1m41.864s
2 Emanuele Olivieri R-ace GP +0.118s
3 Salim Hanna Hernandez Prema +0.351s
4 Gabriel Gomez US Racing +0.409s
5 Sebastian Wheldon Prema +0.434s
6 Artem Severiukhin Jenzer Motorsport +0.447s
7 Newman Chi Prema +0.594s
8 Dante Vinci Van Amersfoort Racing +0.605s
9 Maximilian Popov Van Amersfoort Racing +0.629s
10 Luka Sammalisto US Racing +0.680s
Race 2 grid
1 Olivieri 1m51.460s
2 Gomez +0.037s
3 Nakamura +0.116s
4 Hanna +0.185s
5 Wheldon +0.302s
6 Popov +0.340s
7 Chi +0.376s
8 Andrea Dupe Prema +0.428s
9 Sammalisto +0.516s
10 Emily Cotty R-ace GP +0.558s
Race 3 grid
1 Olivieri 1m41.654s
2 Wheldon +0.111s
3 Nakamura +0.136s
4 Popov +0.161s
5 Gomez +0.226s
6 Hanna +0.260s
7 Dupe +0.391s
8 Sammalisto +0.400s
9 Chi +0.478s
10 Alex Powell R-ace GP +0.502s