Scarperia e San Piero (Florence) - Alex Powell claimed victory in Race 2 at Mugello, securing his first-ever win in the Italian F.4 Championship. In a weekend that is rewarding the hard work put in since the start of the season, Powell added to his third place in Race 1 by taking the win in the second race of the weekend, making the most of the first of his two pole positions earned in qualifying. He will start from pole again tomorrow in the final race of Round 4 of the Championship, promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion.
Taking second place on the day’s second podium was Prema Racing’s Newman Chi. After winning the final race at Monza, Chi returned to Mugello with strong pace in a race that proved tricky to interpret, with a few drops of rain falling but not enough to require wet tyres. The Chinese driver nailed a perfect start from P4, propelling him straight into the chase for Powell. Rounding out the podium was Reno Francot. The Dutch driver, racing with PHM Racing, competed in the Italian series last season and returned for Round 4, where he earned his first overall podium in the championship.
Fourth place went to Sebastian Wheldon, who clawed back important points on his teammate and current championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta (sixth in Race 2 after winning the first race of the weekend). Wheldon, representing Prema Racing, challenged for the lead off the line in a dramatic start that saw several cars fan out and the front order reshuffled. Wheldon ran third in the opening laps after overtaking Francot, who later regained the position with a bold move on the inside.
Gabriel Gomez, racing for US Racing, finished fifth, adding more valuable points after his second-place result earlier in the day. Nakamura-Berta once again showed strong race pace, recovering from a compromised qualifying session due to a track-limits violation and climbing from the ninth row to finish sixth. In seventh was Finnish driver Luka Sammalisto, followed by two US Racing teammates: Andrija Kostic and Kabir Anurag. Singaporean driver Anurag also set the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1'50.592.
With a tenth-place finish, Australian driver Dante Vinci (Van Amersfoort Racing) took second place on the Rookie podium behind Newman Chi. Completing the Rookie top three was David Walther, thirteenth overall and driving for Maffi Racing. The fight for the points zone was highly contested: adding excitement to the battle were R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri and Prema Racing’s Oleksandr Bondarev, who eventually finished eleventh and twelfth, respectively.
During the race, Powell also had to manage a restart after a Safety Car period triggered by an incident at Turn 2 involving Guy Albag (R-ace GP), Elia Weiss (Cram Motorsport), and Luca Viisoreanu (Real Racing), which ended the race for the latter two. An 8-place grid penalty was assigned to Elia Weiss. Another incident occurred on the penultimate lap, in a wheel-to-wheel contact between Nathaniel Berreby (Maffi Racing) and Emily Cotty (R-ace GP). The race therefore ended behind the Safety Car. Following the incident, the panel of Stewards assigned Berreby a 25-second post-race penalty. The victory in the Women’s Trophy, as a result of the incident, went to Payton Westcott of Van Amersfoort Racing, with Kornelia Olkucka second for Maffi Racing.
Further penalties were then issued: David Cosma Cristofor (PHM Racing) received a 25-second penalty for a collision with Guy Albag which resulted in a puncture for the latter; Enea Frey (Jenzer Motorsport) was handed a 5-second penalty for failing to leave sufficient space to his rival during a battle on track with Aleksander Ruta (Van Amersfoort Racing).
Alex Powell: “It’s unbelievable, I’m lost for words. We knew we had a good chance, starting on pole, but we knew around here anything could happen. I’m speechless. I can only thank the people around me for all their hard work, this is all coming together, and it’s really incredible. It wasn’t easy, we had rain in the first safety car, and that was a bit sketchy, especially going into the braking zone of T1 on the restart. It was about keeping focus, making sure we were doing the small things right, and it all came together.”
Newman Chi: “The start was everything. In this track, it’s quite hard to overtake. I was just managing quite well my tyres, and I tried to not let the car behind stay so close in the last sector, and I think I did a good job. I like this track, I would say it’s one of my favourites, it is just a bit hard to overtake, otherwise we could have gone for more, but I will take this!”
Reno Francot: “It feels really good to be on the podium here in the Italian Championship, my first ever podium in the whole Championship. I did it last year, now I made my comeback for a couple of races, and it paid off really well. I’m really thankful to the team for giving me the opportunity to drive. It feels really good to have a taste of the champagne.”
Tomorrow, Sunday 13 July, it’s time for Race 3, scheduled to start at 10:40. All races will run for 30 minutes plus one lap and will be broadcast live on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 288 and TivùSat 52) and streamed online at www.live.acisport.it, as well as on the ACI Sport TV YouTube and Facebook pages. Races will also be streamed with English commentary through the international network of broadcasters carrying the Italian F.4 Championship, and via the official YouTube and Facebook pages of the Italian F.4 Championship.