Mugello - Drama and excitement marked Race 2 of the E4 Championship at Mugello. Kean Nakamura-Berta with Prema Racing, already victorious in Race 1 this morning, crossed the line first again. However, the Japanese-Slovak driver lost the win due to a five-second penalty imposed by the Stewards, following his defense at the start against Alex Powell with R-ace GP. To hold position, Nakamura-Berta ran beyond track limits, resulting in the infringement. Given the gap to the rest of the field, the penalty relegated him to P2, though he still takes the championship lead with 94 points.
Victory went to Alex Powell, who delivered a superb performance: an intense fight from the start to the closing laps, always chasing Nakamura-Berta, and also setting the fastest lap of the race in 1’50.736. Powell will start from pole again in Race 3, aiming to double his tally in the weekend finale. Third across the line was Reno Francot with PHM Racing, who held his starting position despite heavy pressure from Salim Hanna with Prema Racing.
Alex Powell: “Today, we really did the best we could, maximizing every single opportunity. In Race 2, we were really on top of the game. I can only thank my team, my guys, so much, because it’s really their hard work that is paying off here.”
Kean Nakamura-Berta: “For this race, we chose to run half fresh tyres and half used. Some of the competitors who were fast might have been on full fresh, so nothing left for tomorrow. I had a pretty disastrous start. The first lap was really tight, tough racing between me and Alex in the first sector. From there, we just tried to manage. The car behind had so much more pace than us. It was probably the toughest race of the season so far, under pressure all the way and having to manage the tyres at the same time. Big thanks to the team.”
Reno Francot: “In the beginning, I had quite a decent start and managed to maintain my position. Then I saw the pace was quite similar to the two cars in front. I tried to stay with them, hoping they would fight or make a mistake so I could pass, or try to make a move. But I think I pushed too hard on my tyres, so in the end I had to slow down a bit. I defended as well as possible from P4 and kept third place. Overall, I’m quite happy, but still, we have some more work to do.”
The Colombian Salim Hanna with Prema Racing finished fourth, repeating his Race 1 result and taking his second Rookie win of the weekend. After a tough start, Hanna recovered with a strong overtake on Gabriel Gomez with US Racing, before launching a long pursuit of the podium without success.
Salim Hanna: “It could have been a lot better since the start. I was too safe on the clutch release and lost a position. In Turn 5, I was pushed off, but I think the responsibility was more on me, I didn’t drive at my best. I still managed to recover, overtaking Gomez with a nice move. I caught the car in third and tried to pass on the outside at Turn 1, but the other driver lost the car and I had to avoid him. Then I tried three more times, and it didn’t work out. We’ll check the video to see where I need to improve and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Given the situation, it wasn’t a bad job, but it definitely could have been much better.”
Fifth was Gabriel Gomez, who had made a stunning start that carried him to the edge of the podium before losing out to Hanna. Sixth came Kabir Anurag with US Racing and Alpine Academy, combative from the very first laps. Seventh was Dante Vinci with Van Amersfoort Racing, who took second place on the Rookie podium.
Maksimilian Popov with Van Amersfoort Racing finished eighth after a race full of battles with Anurag and Vinci. Ninth was Sebastian Wheldon with Prema Racing and Andretti Global, who crossed the line just ahead of teammate Zhenrui Chi with Prema Racing. The Chinese driver, tenth overall, completed the Rookie podium from third place.
Zhenrui Chi: “It was not the best start to the weekend. In qualifying, we struggled a lot, and I didn’t have a good starting position. This is a high-deg track, and for some reason we couldn’t really manage the degradation well, and that’s why we were fighting a lot at the end. For tomorrow, I hope for a wet race. I’m starting 13th, and I feel I have more chances in the wet than in the dry right now.”
In the women’s classification, victory went to Mathilda Paatz with Mathilda Racing and AS Motorsport, ahead of Emily Cotty with R-ace GP and Payton Westcott with Van Amersfoort Racing.
Now only Race 3 remains, scheduled for Sunday, September 14, at 10:40 AM. All races of the weekend run over 30 minutes plus one lap and are broadcast live on ACI Sport TV and the international network of broadcasters following the championship worldwide, as well as via live streaming on the social channels of ACI Sport and the E4 Championship.