Photo: F4 Middle East
R-ace GP’s Alex Powell was quickest in Formula 4 Middle East practice at Yas Marina Circuit.
The day began with two hour-long pre-event test sessions, and Kean Nakamura Berta led a Mumbai Falcons one-two in the first. He set a 1m55.874s, leading Tomass Stolcermanis by 0.318 seconds after he improved on his penultimate lap.
That left R-ace’s points leader Emanuele Oliveri in third, a further 0.057s back, and Yas Heat Academy’s Adam Al Azhari was fourth fastest. The top 11 were split by a second, and 2.95s covered the top 26. There were 107 laptimes by 25 drivers deleted due to track limits abuse.
Nakamura’s session one best remained the benchmark of testing through session two, with was red flagged with less than four-and-a-half minutes to go due to Xcel Motorsport’s Yuhao Fu getting into trouble at turn 14.
Al Azhari topped the timesheet with a 1m56.230s, moving him up to third overall. He led Nakamura by 0.141s, Oliveri by 0.254s and Stolcermanis by 0.263s. His team-mate August Raber also improved, going fifth fastest in the session and ninth overall.
Behind him was Powell, who rose to 12th place in the combined classification. A second covered the top 13 in testing, and in session two track limits abuse led to a colossal 170 laps by 24 drivers being deleted.
Fu laid down a 1m58.891s benchmark in the first five minutes of practice, at a time when few other drivers were on track. Evans GP’s Tiago Rodrigues brought the pace down into the 1m57s and then the 1m56s, before Nakamura moved to the top in the second half of the 30-minute session with a 1m56.275s.
Laptime deletions meant drivers were jumping up and down the order, and Rodrigues flitted between third and 19th place going into the final 10 minutes. Stolcermanis and R-ace’s Emanuele Olivieri set fastest laps before they were deleted, and only small gains were made that counted.
Powell ended up on top by 0.182s with a 1m55.686s lap, and Olivieri was second. Nakamura and Stolcermanis were split by 0.014s in third and fourth, and the next three drivers were also run by Prema. Al Azhari was on top with less than two minutes to go but after deletions was classified in 11th, two spots ahead of Rodrigues. In total, 69 laps by 24 laps were deleted.
Results round-up
Pre-event testing
1 Kean Nakamura Berta Mumbai Falcons 1m55.874s
2 Tomass Stolcermanis Mumbai Falcons +0.318s
3 Adam Al Azhari Yas Heat Academy 56.23
4 Emanuele Olivieri R-ace GP +0.375s
5 Salim Hanna Hernandez Mumbai Falcons +0.666s
6 Sebastian Wheldon Prema +0.686s
7 Newman Chi Prema +0.688s
8 Martin Molnar Evans GP +0.713s
9 August Raber Yas Heat Academy +0.728s
10 Reno Francot Akcel GP +0.780s
Free practice
1 Alex Powell R-ace GP 1m55.686s
2 Olivieri +0.182s
3 Nakamura +0.300s
4 Stolcermanis +0.314s
5 Chi +0.353s
6 Hanna +0.670s
7 Wheldon +0.800s
8 Francot +0.919s
9 Molnar +0.932s
10 Sasha Bondarev Prema +0.954s