Wheldon quickest by big margin with late lap in FP2 for FIA F4 World Cup

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Sebastian Wheldon was quickest in free practice two for the FIA Formula 4 World Cup on a drying track in Macau.

He went to the top of the order with his penultimate lap of the 40-minute session, becoming the only driver to lap sub-1m25s.

It was a more mixed session than FP1, led throughout by Kean Nakamura Berta, as first place swapped between a handful of drivers.

As first leaving the pits, Nakamura was first to set a flying lap and was swiftly beaten by Jules Roussel and then Tiago Rodrigues who posted a 2m31.816s. Unlike everybody else, Fionn McLaughlin did not set a laptime as he pitted at the end of his outlap and his engine cover was removed. A technical problem had already denied him any running in FP1.

Nakamura improved to 2m28.511s on his second lap to lead Emanuele Olivieri by 0.54 seconds, until Roussel crossed the line and set a 2m27.955s that put him 0.397s ahead of Rayan Caretti.

Gino Trappa crashed hard at Lisboa 10 minutes in, stopping the session for five-and-a-half minutes. There were three more minutes of action before Emily Cotty hit the wall at turn 15, triggering further red flags. McLaughlin had joined the rest of the field for the restart, but he and Alexandre Munoz were denied the opportunity to record their first flying laps.

Running resumed with 14 minutes remaining, with everyone heading out, and there were no further disruptions. However McLaughlin once again ended his outlap by pitting and did not return to track after that.

Nakamura lowered the pace to 2m26.240s with nine minutes to go, a benchmark which Roussel beat by 0.119s. Wheldon went third fastest, 0.322s behind, and Rodrigues was 0.788s off in fourth until Caretti completed his lap and got within 0.185s of Nakamura’s pace.

On his next lap Nakamura improved to 2m25.816s, which Olivieri was 0.124s shy of just behind. Caretti then went quickest by 0.099s, and Olivieri beat him by 0.198s with four minutes remaining.

Roussel was next to the top, by 0.387s as he posted a 2m25.132s, and with one-and-a-half minutes to go Nakamura set a personal best in third to sit 0.556s behind.

Olivieri also got faster, but was 0.205s off Roussel, them with 53s to go Wheldon jumped from ninth to first with a 2m24.323s which put him 0.809s clear at the top.

Nakamura reduced that gap to 0.771s after the chequered flag, with Olivieri a further 0.018s behind with his final lap.

Caretti and Rodrigues had already pitted and ended FP2 in fifth and sixth behind Roussel, while others missed the chance for a last-lap improvement as Yuzhe Wang crashed and caused yellow flags.

Rintaro Sato pipped Thomas Bearman to seventh, with the latter warned for pitlane speeding. Shimo Zhang and Ary Bansal completed the top 10.

Additional reporting by Ida Wood

Free practice results