Taponen on top again in Italian F4 and F1 Academy team test at Misano

Photo: F4 UAE

Ferrari junior Tuukka Taponen was fastest in testing for Italian Formula 4 and F1 Academy teams at Misano this week.

The 44-car entry list was split into two groups for the two days of running, with Group A running first on Tuesday and Group B on Wednesday.

US Racing’s Zachary David set the pace in the opening session, a 1m36.429s lap putting him 0.187 seconds ahead of BVM Racing’s Alfio Spina.

Prema’s Marta Garcia was the top F1 Academy runner, 3.302s off the pace, while team-mate Chloe Chong was 5.899s slower than David and Bianca Bustamante was 6.09s off. That did not appear to be a representative pace, as all three improved through the test.

Taponen topped Group B’s first session with a 1m35.995s lap, 0.112s faster than Prema team-mate James Wharton and with Ugo Ugochukwu (Prema) and Brando Badoer (Van Amersfoort Racing) both just under half a second off.

Spina set a 1m36.189s to head the next session by just 0.034s over the Formula Regional race-winner Hadrien David who was driving for R-ace GP. Zachary David was 0.048s back in third. US’s Gianmarco Pradel was the only driver not to improve their pace.

Wharton led Ugochukwu by 0.267s in the next session, with all of the drivers improving as the track warmed up.

James Egozi, leader of the WSK Super Master Series on OK karts, started the afternoon on top as all but two of Group A’s drivers improved.

He set a 1m35.571s, while Taponen led Group B with a day-topping 1m36.277s, going 0.133s faster than Badoer. Wharton was third fastest but he and Reno Francot failed to improve their pace.

US’s Kacper Sztuka pipped Pradel (who would not improve on day two) to top spot in Group A’s final Tuesday session by 0.084s, and Wharton was a similarly tight 0.086s ahead of VAR’s Ivan Domingues in Group B.

Wharton was fastest again as Group B started Wednesday’s action, then Egozi was fastest again as Group A took to the track.

Taponen became the first driver into the 1m34s in session six, leading Wharton and Italian F4 champion Andrea Kimi Antonelli who had taken over from Davide Larini in one of the cars of his family’s AKM Motorsport team.

PHM Racing’s Valentin Kluss came to the fore by just 0.012s in the session after, with the top 13 covered by a second.

Antonelli started the afternoon on top by 0.04s over Taponen and 0.064s over Arvid Lindblad, who was the fastest improver as this time less than a second split the top 17.

Sztuka lowered his pace to 1m35.011s to top Group A’s seventh session, then the test ended with Taponen pipping Wharton to the overall top spot by 0.009s in their final session and then Kluss topping the times in the last hour of track action.

Test results