Vallelunga - Kean Nakamura-Berta, the Anglo-Japanese driver for Prema Racing, didn’t put a foot wrong. This morning he secured his fourth win from four starts, taking the opening race of the second round at the Autodromo Piero Taruffi in Vallelunga. Increasing his lead in the standings, Nakamura-Berta now sits at 100 Championship points.
Right behind him at the finish line was teammate Tomass Stolcermanis, who got off to a great start and immediately began battling with Luka Sammalisto (US Racing), who had started from second. After the opening laps, the Latvian moved ahead and held second place until the chequered flag. Misfortune struck Sammalisto, who lost a potential podium after going off track with one wheel on the grass, an error that cost him dearly just beyond the white line. Despite retiring and being classified at the back, he still set the fastest lap of the race.
Third on the podium was Brazilian Gabriel Gomez, also with US Racing, who had shown strong pace all weekend but was held back by tricky qualifying conditions due to the weather. His teammate Maxim Rehm delivered a solid performance to finish fourth, just shy of the podium.
Fifth overall and first among the Rookies was Prema Racing’s Salim Hanna. The Colombian claimed his fourth win in the special classification for debutants, further extending his lead. Completing the Rookie podium were Artem Severiukhin (Jenzer Motorsport) in sixth overall and Marcus Saeter (Van Amersfoort Racing) in seventh.
Enea Frey (Jenzer Motorsport) finished eighth, ahead of Newman Chi (Prema Racing), while Kirill Kutskov (Maffi Racing) rounded out the top 10 and claimed the final point on offer in Race 1.
Several drivers were forced to retire from a complex race that included a mid-race safety car and ended under neutralised classification following Sammalisto’s late off-track excursion just over a minute and a lap from the end. Retirements included Kornelia Olkcucka and Nathaniel Berreby (Maffi Racing), Bart Harrison (Jenzer Motorsport), and Kabir Anurag (US Racing), all involved in incidents. For his role in the incident with Anurag, Aleksandr Ruta (Van Amersfoort Racing) received a four-place grid penalty. Two-position grid penalty also for Oleksandr Bondarev (Prema Racing), following an incident with Sicilian Ludovico Busso (Viola Formula Racing).
Kean Nakamura-Berta: “It’s a good way to start the weekend, now we’ve got two more races to go. We’ll keep working with the team to try and extract even more from the car. We’ll try to get back to the kind of pace we had in Misano. We always knew it would be a bit tougher here, but overall I’m really happy: four wins out of four, hopefully we can keep it going like this.”
Tomass Stolcermanis: “It was a really good race. The pace wasn’t quite what we expected, but I was still pretty quick, even behind Kean in the dirty air. I got a good start and moved into P3 right away. I think the safety car cost me the chance to fight for the win. Still, I’m quite happy with the race, now I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Gabriel Gomez: “The week was going really well until qualifying. The wet made things tricky, and I ended up just P4. Starting a bit further back makes things harder. Still, we managed a good race, the pace was there. It’s just tough to overtake with the dirty air. I think we had more pace, but the podium is still good. Now we need to score more points and try to get a better starting position for the final race.”
Salim Hanna: “In the first lap there was a bit of fighting, everyone was close. I managed to pass two cars, then with the dirty air I started saving tyres for the end, but with the safety car I couldn’t really do much. I think we did a good job, we still need to improve the starts, but everything else was good.”