Wheldon quickest in both Italian F4 practice sessions at Mugello

Photo: ACI Sport

Prema’s Sebastian Wheldon was quickest in Italian Formula 4 free practice at Mugello on Friday.

There were two 40-minute sessions, and it was 10 minutes into FP1 when the first representative laptimes appeared.

US Racing’s Kabir Anurag set a 1m55.546s, which was soon beaten by a 1m55.133s from Cram Motorsport’s Elia Weiss.

Technorace’s Francesco Coppola was next to the top 10 seconds later, breaking into the 1m54s, then US’s Maxim Rehm smashed his benchmark by posting a 1m52.782s.

There was another big gain when Anurag completed his next lap, as he improved to 1m51.95s.

He was only fastest for three seconds though as R-ace GP’s Emanuele Oliveri went 0.65s faster than him.

The battle to be fastest died down not long after, with Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta demoting Olivieri with a 1m50.712s before the Italian responded two minutes later with a 1m50.499s.

A minute after that, Wheldon set a 1m50.072s which would not be beaten in the second half of the session. There was a brief red flag period after Wheldon set his personal best.

Olivieri got within 0.12s of him, with US’s Gabriel Gomez 0.179s off in third. Rehm trailed by 0.21s in fourth, and was just 0.001s faster than team-mate Andrija Kostic.

Nakamura and R-ace’s Alex Powell were also within 0.3s of the pace, as a second covered the top 20.

Real Racing Team’s Luca Viisoreanu was the driver to beat at first in FP2, quickly bringing the pace down into the 1m52s.

Viola Formula Racing’s Arthur Lorimier and Jenzer Motorsport’s Enea Frey quickly beat him, then Van Amersfoort Racing’s Alexander Ruta set two successive laps in the 1m50s to establish himself at the top and get close to Wheldon’s FP1-topping laptime.

Marcus Saeter knocked his team-mate down to second a few minutes later with a 1m50.267s, at which point a quarter of the field ad yet to reach a representative pace or even leave the pits.

Prema’s Salim Hanna Hernandez was quickest going into the session’s second half, setting a 1m50.030s to go fastest overall and then setting a new 1m49.801s benchmark.

That stood for eight minutes, with Rehm beating it by just 0.045s. He was only ahead for 14s before Kostic pipped him by 0.005s, and then Wheldon crossed the line in 1m49.268s.

He was comfortably fastest, but did not exclusively hold top spot thereon. Olivieri managed to outpace him by 0.109s, only for Wheldon to complete his next lap in 1m49.135s and move back ahead.

A full course yellow was called later on and prevented further improvements, with 0.095s covering a top three completed by VAR’s Maximilian Popov (who was 22nd in FP1).

Powell, Anurag and Frey were the only others within half a second of Wheldon, and seven drivers did not match their FP1 pace. Gomez was the highest placed of those in 17th overall. Championship leader Nakamura did improve in FP2 but ended practice in 21st place.

Free practice results