Wharton tops Kuwait test, gets new team-mate for next F4 UAE round

Photo: F4 UAE

James Wharton was fastest in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates’ pre-event test for its second round at Kuwait Motor Town.

The series raced at the track last week, with a one-day break before testing took place today ahead of a race ‘weekend’ running over Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mumbai Falcons driver Wharton topped the first of two test sessions, setting the pace with a 1m54.279s lap 21 minutes into the hour-long action.

Before that, top spot had been held by multiple drivers. R-ace GP’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr was first to top the times, with Yas Heat Academy’s Matteo Quintarelli first into the 1m57s.

Noah Lisle knocked Quintarelli from the top, before PHM Racing’s Akshay Bohra brought the pace down into the 1m56s. He and MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella traded fastest laps over their next effots, with the Mumbai Falcons and Prema drivers then taking to the track and joining the fight to be fastest.

Tuukka Taponen and Ugo Ugochukwu lowered the pace furthe until Wharton set the first sub-1m55s lap and then improved two more times to end the session 0.053 seconds ahead of Prema’s Ugochukwu.

PHM’s Valentin Kluss was third fastest, with Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael half a second back in fourth.

Ugochukwu went one better in session two to set the pace by 0.031s over Rinicella, and with Wharton 0.099s behind in third, but the pace for most drivers was slower than the cooler conditions earlier in the day.

Rinicella was one of 15 drivers to go faster in session two, along Keanu Al Azhari (Yas Heat), William Macintyre (Hitech GP), Zachary David (R-ace), Bohra and James Piszcyk (Hitech) filling positions four to eight in the session and all moving up the day’s combined classification as a result.

Another of the improvers was Rishon Rajeev, who was 34th fastest overall and will make his debut with Mumbai Falcons this week. Rajeev, who has claimed a pole and a podium in the recent MRF Formula 2000 season and was on the podium in last year’s Indian Racing League, is replacing Muhammad Ibrahim.

Test results