Yamakoshi sets Italian F4 pace again by topping Vallelunga practice

Photo: ACI Sport

Akshay Bohra, Hiyu Yamakoshi and Alex Powell topped a session each in the first two days of Italian Formula 4 track action at Vallelunga.

Pre-event testing took place over four hours on Thursday afternoon, and US Racing driver Bohra led a top five covered by 0.095 seconds.

R-ace GP duo Enzo Yeh and Luka Sammalisto led the way at first, starting off setting laps in the 1m37s and bringing the pace down to 1m35.679s before Prema’s drivers took over at the top.

Tomass Stolceramis set a 1m35.311s, Freddie Slater improved on that by 0.106s then Powell knocked a further 0.066s off the fastest lap.

Jenzer Motorsport’s Reno Francot was first to break into the 1m34s, but Slater then knocked him down to second by 0.051s. Francot responded with a big improvement, setting a 1m34.547s, but Slater also had more in hand and reclaimed first place by 0.104s.

Powell went fastest again a few minutes later, then with 80 minutes left of testing Bohra set a 1m34.305s to reach the top. He improved three more times over the next 10 minutes, with his 1m33.984s going unbeaten through the last hour.

Slater was only 0.021s behind in second, US’s Gianmarco Pradel trailed by 0.081s, then Jenzer’s Enea Frey and Prema’s Kean Nakamura Berta were 0.094s and 0.095s off the top. Half a second covered the top 17, and 0.901s split the top 27.

Free practice one on Friday morning was a slightly faster session, and nine drivers took turns in first place. Van Amersfoort Racing’s Gustav Jonsson was first to set the pace, then AKM Motorsport’s Wiktor Dobrzanski spent eight minutes on top before Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri knocked 1.5s off his benchmark with a 1m35.723s.

Half a minute later PHM Racing’s Andrej Petrovic went fastest by 0.884s, but he only spent a minute ahead before Slater beat him by a quarter of a second. There were small gains in the following period, with Bohra and team-mate Matheus Ferreira gradually bringing the pace down to 1m34.018s.

By the end of the 40-minute session they were down in eighth and 20th, but the only change at the top in the session’s second half was VAR’s Yamakoshi setting a 1m33.722s to go fastest.

Sammalisto got closest to his pace, 0.197s behind, Jonsson and Pradel were both within 0.3s of him and there was 0.973s covering the top 26.

Ferreira was first to the top in FP2, then team-mate Maxim Rehm brought the pace into the 1m35s. Al Dhaheri and US’s Jack Beeton each briefly was fastest, before Ferreira and Rehm lowered the pace further.

Powell broke the 1m35s barrier first, but Petrovic in his slipstream went 0.063s faster. Yamakoshi then set a 1m34.811s, and on Powell’s next lap he beat that by 0.031s. The response from Yamakoshi was to snatch back first place by 0.039s, then Ferreira scrubbed 0.045s off his benchmark.

After a cooldown lap, Powell put in three successive improvements and his 1m34.319s lap was the fastest for 15 minutes. Ferreira set a 1m33.961s to topple him, but Powell reclaimed FP2 top spot and third place overall by 0.009s with a minute left of practice.

Powell, Ferreira, Beeton and the bottom five drivers in the 35-car field were the only drivers setting personal bests in FP2, while Nakamura missed both sessions.

Free practice results