Slater pips Powell in Italian F4 test at Paul Ricard

Photo: ACI Sport

The Italian Formula 4 paddock headed to France this week to test at Paul Ricard, and Freddie Slater pipped Prema team-mate Alex Powell to top spot.

US Racing’s Gianmarco Pradel was fastest in the opening session on Thursday, setting a 2m05.345s to lead team-mate Matheus Ferreira by 0.124 seconds and Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta by 0.209s. Jack Beeton (US), Powell, Rashid Al Dhaheri (Prema) and Akshay Bohra (US) were also within half a second of Pradel.

Powell lowered the pace to 2m04.858s in session two, leading Slater by 0.104s. Nobody else lapped sub-2m05s, with Tomass Stolcermais 0.375s behind in third and Al Dhaheri 0.396s back in fourth. R-ace GP’s Enzo Yeh was fifth and Ferreia was sixth fastest, and 0.902s covered the top 15. The only non-improvers were US trio Pradel, Jack Beeton and Kabir Anurag.

Session three was slower, with a 2m05.613s enough to put Slater on top by 0.026s over Ferreira. The close gaps continued down the order, with 0.473s between first and ninth and 0.95s covering the top 17. Nakamura was absent, and remained so for the rest of the test, and there was only one driver who set a personal best laptime.

Thursday ended with Slater on top again, this time setting a 2m04.991s to edge Powell by 0.05s and Stolceramis by 0.107s in session four. Stolcermanis was among the nine drivers to improve their pace.

Slater was the benchmark again as Friday’s track action began, and he moved to the top of the test’s overall classification in session five. He set a 2m04.776s to lead Powell by 0.317s and beat the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior’s Thursday benchmark by 0.082s. There were 13 improvers in the 22-car field.

Beeton skipped session six and Powell only did two laps, as Slater was again fastest. It was a slow session, and a 2m05.254s put Slater on top. Yeh was second quickest, and Real Racing Team’s Luca Viisoreanu was a surprise third and 0.261s behind.

In session seven the pacesetter was US’s Maxim Rehm, who like Viisorenau had previously been way down the order. He pipped Slater to first place by 0.017s with a 2m05.560s, and Stolcermanis was 0.111s behind in third. The top 16 were spread by 0.897s, and Rehm wa one of two improvers.

The final session was even closer at the top, with 0.012s splitting Powell and Slater. Powell came just 0.021s short of matching his personal best, but Stolcermanis did improve in third as he lapped 0.145s slower than Powell. Their other team-mate Dion Gowda was fourth fastest, which bought him up to seventh overall behind Al Dhaheri who missed the final hour of action.

Test results