Qualifying at Mugello delivered an extraordinary battle for the grids of the opening three races of the fourth round of the Italian F4 Championship. Elia Weiss (Jenzer Motorsport) and David Cosma-Cristofor (Prema Racing) both topped their respective qualifying divisions by setting exactly the same lap time.
Both drivers stopped the clock at 1’49.035, but the regulations required a tie-breaker to determine the outright fastest lap. As the first driver to record the time, Elia Weiss claimed the overall benchmark. As a result, the German driver secured the top spot in Group A, earning pole position for Race 2 and Race 3. Cosma-Cristofor, meanwhile, was assigned to Group B, meaning he will start from pole in Race 1, featuring Groups B and C.
In the opening qualifying session, Weiss finished 0.333 seconds ahead of Alp Aksoy (Prema Racing). Since the first division produced the outright fastest lap, the Turkish driver was allocated to Group C, earning a front-row start for both Race 1 (Groups B-C) and Race 3 (Groups A-C). Third fastest was Ferrari Driver Academy driver Niccolò Maccagnani (Prema Racing), 0.426 seconds behind, followed by Williams Driver Academy driver Oleksandr Bondarev in fourth, 0.601 seconds off the pace. Luka Sammalisto (US Racing), who had been among the early pace-setters, completed the top five at 0.621 seconds.
In the second qualifying session, Mercedes Junior Team driver Andy Consani (R-ace GP) finished second, 0.349 seconds behind Cosma-Cristofor. Third was teammate and fellow Mercedes Junior Kenzo Craigie, 0.518 seconds adrift. Fourth went to Christian Costoya, representing Prema Racing and the McLaren Development Programme, with a gap of 0.558 seconds, while Czech driver Dominik Simek (Trident Motorsport) rounded out the top five at 0.566 seconds.
The combined qualifying results then determined the three race groups. Group A will be headed by Elia Weiss, followed by Andy Consani, Oleksandr Bondarev, Dominik Simek and Ary Bansal (US Racing). Group B will be led by David Cosma-Cristofor ahead of Niccolò Maccagnani, Christian Costoya, Florentin Hattemer (Trident Motorsport) and Oscar Repetto (PHM Racing). Group C will be headed by Alp Aksoy, followed by Kenzo Craigie, Luka Sammalisto and Jenzer Motorsport teammates Bader Al Sulaiti and Arn Levi.
The three groups will rotate two at a time across the opening three races of the weekend. At the end of those qualifying races, the 49 drivers entered for the fourth round of the Italian F4 Championship will be reduced to the 36 fastest, who will advance to the Final.
Elia Weiss: "I'm lost for words right now. The team has been putting in a massive amount of work and it just paid off. It's something we wouldn't have expected, but we're all super satisfied. We just have to keep going like this. I was quite lucky because I didn't have any traffic on my lap. I could really focus on putting together some good push laps and getting into the zone. It worked out perfectly. We also had a good tyre strategy and managed to get them into the right operating window."
David Cosma-Cristofor: "It was quite a good lap. We struggled a bit with the setup in free practice, but we managed to put everything together, and I'm really happy about it. It wasn't a perfect lap from my side, but I'm really happy to take pole and to have been consistently in the top two in qualifying over the last four races. That's my main goal. I'll just push tomorrow and stay consistent as always. Nothing is impossible, but you have to work hard together with the team to beat the others."
Tomorrow, Saturday 25 July, with Race 1 for Groups B and C at 11:10, followed by Race 2 for Groups A and B at 17:10.
On Sunday 26 July, the day opens with the A and C race at 09:00, before the Final, reserved for the fastest 36 drivers of the weekend, gets underway at 15:50.
All races will be contested over 25 minutes plus one lap, awarding full championship points to the top 15 finishers. Every race will be broadcast live on ACI Sport TV, streamed on the official ACI Sport and Italian F4 Championship social media channels, and distributed worldwide through the championship's international broadcast network.