Photo: Van Amersfoort Racing
Italian Formula 4 title outsider Hiyu Yamakoshi will return to Spanish F4 for this weekend’s round at Motorland Aragon.
The 17-year-old Japanese racer competed in multiple F4 championships last year as a single-seater rookie, coming fifth in French F4 with five podiums, 14th in an in incomplete Spanish F4 campaign with Tecnicar Motorsport and 22nd in F4 United Arab Emirates after only contesting two rounds with Pinnacle VAR.
He stuck with that combination for 2024, making an F4 UAE cameo with Pinnacle Motorsport in February then joining Van Amersfoort Racing in Italian F4.
Despite taking two wins, three other podiums and three poles from the first five rounds and occupying second place in the standings, he is 86 points off the championship lead in Italian F4 and unlikely to challenge for the title due to the domination of Prema’s Freddie Slater.
He will make his Spanish F4 return with the VAR-supported Monlau Motorsport, which is adding a fourth car to its line-up, and compete as a wildcard entrant.
Yamakoshi’s Italian F4 rival Reno Francot will also be joining the grid at Aragon, along with single-seater debutant Rafael Teran, with the Global Racing Service team.
Francot was the F4 Central European Zone runner-up with Jenzer Motorsport in 2023, and made a Spanish F4 cameo with MP Motorsport. The 16-year-old Dutchman began this year by joinging GRS for a Formula Winter Series outing, then returned to Jenzer for Italian F4 where he is currently 13th in the standings with a best finish of fourth.
Teran comes from Colombia and during his karting career races in Europe as well as North and South America.