The fifth round of the Italian F.4 Championship at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola ended under the banner of Prema Racing, as Oleksandr Bondarev, a driver from the Williams Driver Academy, secured his first overall victory. After losing the lead at the start to teammate Kean Nakamura-Berta, the Ukrainian kept his focus and waited for the right moment to reclaim the top spot. The opportunity came with a spectacular move, carefully prepared over several laps, that earned him his first win of the season.
Championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta finished second after having already stepped onto the podium in Race 1 with a third place. With Race 2 suspended due to a start-line incident involving eleven cars, the Japanese-Slovak driver leaves Imola with 33 points and retains the top spot in the standings with a total of 246 points. Newman Chi secured third place in Race 3 after a late overtake on Maksimilian Popov of Van Amersfoort Racing, completing an all-Prema Racing podium.
With a gap opening behind Popov, Gabriel Gomez seized the opportunity to move up and finish fourth. The Brazilian from US Racing, who had claimed his second win of the season in Race 1, delivered another strong performance in Race 3, charging from eighth on the grid to just outside the podium. Gomez remains Nakamura-Berta’s main challenger in the title fight and now moves up to second in the standings with 191 points.
Another solid result came from Salim Hanna, the Colombian Prema Racing driver, who finished fifth in Race 3 after taking second overall in Race 1, and claimed third among the rookies behind Bondarev and Chi.
Popov, who had held third place for most of the race, eventually finished sixth. Seventh place went to Alex Powell, the Mercedes junior with R-ace GP, who matched his Race 1 result – in both cases making up ground after a difficult qualifying.
Sebastian Wheldon, representing Andretti Global with Prema Racing, crossed the line in eighth after a fierce battle just outside the top ten. However, the American received a five-second post-race penalty following a contact with Bar Harrison of Jenzer Motorsport, which dropped him out of the points.
As a result, Kabir Anurag of the Alpine Academy with US Racing moved up one position, followed by Jenzer Motorsport’s Enea Frey and Teo Schropp, both of whom were part of an intense fight to break into the points.
Oleksandr Bondarev: “It was a really good race. We started from pole, and qualifying went really well too, it put us in a strong position for the whole weekend. I didn’t warm up the tyres enough on the formation lap, and that’s why I lost the lead on lap one. From then on, we kept gaining pace, and the win came in the end. I’m really happy, I can’t thank the whole team enough: my engineer Pedro, my coach Karen, my performance coach Randon, everyone at Prema and Williams. I had been preparing the move for a few laps: I was getting really close on the brakes into turn one. Then I had a really good exit from the last corner and went for the move on the outside of turn two. It was a good pass. Kean was fast, it wasn’t easy to get by. I’m really happy.”
Kean Nakamura-Berta: “I was really slow on the straights. The car setup was good, but there was nothing I could do about that. It was still a good weekend, though a bit disappointing. It could’ve been a much easier one if we’d had better straight-line speed. Well done to Bondarev. Now we move forwar, hopefully we can fix this before Barcelona, otherwise it’ll be tough! This summer I’ll finally go back to Japan. I’ll see my grandparents, and that will be great. I’ll try to take my mind off racing, although the last race always sticks with you. I’ll keep thinking about it, about what more I could’ve done, but I think there wasn’t much left on the table.”
Newman Chi: “It’s always a great feeling. First of all, I have to thank my mechanics and the whole team, they helped me and worked on the car overnight. They did so much and woke up early just to get the car finished. I have no words for them: I’m just really thankful for everything they’ve done. The race went well, I think I did all I could, and I’m happy with the result. With Popov it was honestly a good battle: after the safety car, I think his tyres started to drop off, so I waited for the final part of the race. I got a good exit from the last corner and managed to get side by side into turn two. It was a late braking move, pretty much on the limit. I’d say it was a nice overtake.”
Kean Nakamura-Berta (Prema Racing) leads the championship with 246 points, followed by Gabriel Gomez (US Racing) in second with 191. Sebastian Wheldon (Prema Racing) sits third with 155 points. In fourth place is Salim Hanna (Prema Racing) with 126, just ahead of Alex Powell (R-ace GP) in fifth with 125. The next round of the Italian F.4 Championship will take place in Barcelona, with the penultimate event of the season scheduled for the weekend of September 21.