Rinicella fastest on day two of F4 UAE’s Kuwait test

Photo: F4 UAE

MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella was fastest on the second day of Formula 4 United Arab Emirates’ pre-season test at Kuwait Motor Town.

Rinicella topped the first session of the day, leading the way by half a second over R-ace GP’s day one pacesetter Zachary David.

The only other drivers within a second of Rinicella were Jesse Carrasquedo Jr (R-ace), James Wharton (Mumbai Falcons) and Federico Rifai (Xcel Motorsport).

In total there were nine drivers who sat at the top of the timesheet through the session, with Yas Heat Academy’s Keanu Al Azhari the early benchmark.

Pinnacle VAR’s Kai Daryanani was the first driver into the 1m58s, then Wharton was first into the 1m57s.

He took over at the top from team-mate Tuukka Taponen, who later returned to first place and brought the pace down into the 1m56s. Wharton was already lapping in the 1m55s just a minute later, but the improvements after that were marginal as Rinicella and David came to the fore.

David set a 1m54.843s with 10 minutes remaining and looked to have secured top spot, but two minutes later Rinicella set a 1m54.311s to end the session comfortably on top.

Nobody could quite match Rinicella’s benchmark in session two, with Wharton getting closest. He topped the session with a 1m54.482s, 0.171s slower than what Rinicella had set earlier in the day.

Hitech GP’s Kanato Le was one of the early pacesetters, but Rinicella was already on top after 15 minutes with a 1m55.058s lap. At that point none of the Mumbai Falcons, Prema or R-ace GP cars had even left the pits.

Once they did head out on track they immediately challenged Rinicella, with Wharton moving into second place. He remained there until late on when he set his session-toppping time.

Al Azhari was second fastest, 0.063s behind, then Rinicella, Hitech’s Arvid Lindblad and Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu completed the session’s top five.

Lapping slower than they did in session one were Rinicella, David, Carrasquedo, Taponen, Lena Buhler, Noah Lisle, Raphael Narac and George Zhuravskiy.

R-ace driver Narac missed the season opener, and along with Pinnacle VAR’s Hiyu Yamakoshi is making his series debut in Kuwait this weekend.

Test day one results