Zachary David joins US Racing in Italian F4, Lindblad tops Imola test

Photo: ACI Sport

Arvid LIndblad topped a test for Italian Formula 4 teams at Imola this week, as US Racing announced Zachary David as part of its line-up for the season ahead.

David will do the final Formula Winter Series round and the proposed Euro 4 championship in addition to Italian F4, which he did two rounds of last year and scored once. He also did an ADAC F4 round, and started 2023 by joining R-ace GP in F4 United Arab Emirates where he claimed one win and came eighth in the standings.

BVM Racing’s Alfio Spina started the Imola test on top, setting a 1m47.082s lap in Thursday’s opening session. He was seven tenths of a second clear of Prema trio James Wharton, Arvid Lindblad and Ugo Ugochukwu, and there was a trend that carried through the rest of the test as many laps were deleted over track limits violations.

The pace moved into the 1m46s in session two, and Ugochukwu was fastest with a 1m46.266s lap. That put him 0.255s ahad of team-mate Taponen, with BVM’s Andrea Frassineti 0.557s back in third and AKM Motorsport’s Griffin Peebles a further 0.019s behind in fourth.

Ugochukwu was fastest again in the first of the day’s two afternoon sessions, but set a slower pace than before. A 1m46.526s lap put him 0.151s ahead of Spina, with Wharton, Frassineti and AKM’s Davide Larini four tenths of a second back.

The day ended with the pace improving for the majority of drivers, and Ugochukwu once again was the benchmark. The new benchmark he set was 1m46.120s, and he had a gap of 0.139s to Taponen in second place. Spina and Frassineti were closely matched in third and fourth, both a third of a second off the pace, and Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri edged Wharton, Peebles and PHM Racing’s Valentin Kluss to fifth.

Larini, Nadhavud Bhirombhakdi, Prema’s Niko Lacorte and #Manuel Quondamcarlo were the only drivers not to better the laptimes they had set in session three.

Ugochukwu started Friday the same way we had finished Thursday, and went even faster. His 1m46.028s lap in the opening session was 0.092s faster than what he had set the previous day, and put him 0.102s up on Taponen.

Spina was the only other driver within half a second of him, although Lindblad, James Egozi, Lacorte, Aurelia Nobels, Ariel Elkin and Quondamcarlo all improved their pace.

Ugochukwu broke into the 1m45s in session two, edging Taponen by 0.029s. Lindblad was 0.555s behind, while Wharton and Lacorte were both six tenths off. They all set their personal bests in that session, as did Al Dhaheri, the AKM Motorsport trio and Juju Noda.

Peebles and Quondamcarlo were the only two to improve in the first afternoon session, and Peebles was fastest by 0.263s over Spina and 0.296s over Taponen.

Lindblad usurped Ugochukwu at the top of the combined timesheet in the test’s final session, a 1m45.560s lap putting him 0.289s ahead of his team-mate in the session and 0.188s overall. Nine drivers set their fastest lap in the last session.

Testing results