Ugochukwu tops Italian F4 practice at Monza

Photo: ACI Sport

Ugo Ugochukwu was fastest across Italian Formula 4’s two 40-minute free practice sessions on Friday.

Jenzer Motorsport’s series debutant Finn Wiebelhaus was first to set a lap in FP1, which began early in the morning, then Prema’s Aurelia Nobels lowered the pace by three seconds a minute later.

After 13 minutes there were red flags out as R-ace GP’s Matteo Quintarelli got himself beached in the gravel at turn 11, and at that point Prema’s Arvid Lindblad sat at the top of the timesheet with a 1m52.925s laptime.

He was 0.156 seconds up on team-mate James Wharton, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer 0.259s back in third and the top 13 covered by 0.957s.

Track action resumed with 19 minutes to go, and it took a further nine minutes before a driver in the top 11 improved their pace.

BVM Racing’s Alfio Spina set a 1m53.619s to go ninth fastest, and three minutes later US Racing’s Kacper Sztuka improved by 0.145s to go from eighth to seventh.

As in pre-event testing, which was also topped by Lindblad, drivers often set personal bests in sector one but then could not hook up a lap together and so the early order at the top went unchanged with Lindblad leading Wharton and Badoer.

The pace was lowered in S2, although 18 of the 33 drivers did not improve. Lindblad was fastest from the off, with his early benchmark of 1m53.336s standing until the final minutes when Ugochukwu set a 1m52.873s to go fastest and Taponen slipped into second place with a 1m53.146s.

Lindblad improved too, to 1m53.332s, but with two minutes to go was shuffled down to seventh as Badoer and Wharton moved into second and third and then red flags came out before Lindblad could respond. Therefore he did not beat his FP1 time, but it put him third overall.

Free practice results