Ugo Ugochukwu wins the Group A-B race, the first involving Prema Racing's American junior McLaren. His performance was convincing, he was able to recover from the initial difficulties, in which he had lost the pole position advantage to Kacper Sztuka (US Racing): he took back P1 with an overtaking move on the outside and built gap until the final victory. He is accompanied on the podium by teammate Arvid Lindblad. The Londoner, Red Bull junior driver, is the author of a very smart race, waiting for his moment and taking advantage of the battle between Ugochukwu and Sztuka to get the second step of the podium. Third place for Zachary David, with the Maltese driver bringing the US Racing Team to the podium again.  Bad luck this time for his teammate Sztuka. The Pole driver once again put on the table a great performance after today's first win (race 1, groups B-C), fighting for leading the group until he is stopped by a problem and forced to pit-in. 

P4 for Portuguese Ivan Domingues, Van Amersfoort Racing, followed by Sicilian Alfio Spina, driving for BVM Racing. Spina's work was excellent in containing the assaults of the insidious Tuukka Taponen, Finnish Ferrari Driver Academy under the Prema Racing banner. Very fast on the track Taponen, tried several times to climb the standings, passed sixth under the checkered flag, but slipped through P9 due to a 10-second penalty following the collision that forced Gianmarco Pradel (US Racing) to retire.

Valentin Kluss, PHM Racing, finishes sixth, followed by rookie Rashid Al Dhaheri, Prema Racing. Eighth comes Enzo Deligny, French driver for AKM Motorsport, while Jesse Carrasquedo racing for BVM Racing closes the points zone.

 

Just outside the top 10, Aurelia Nobels, Ferrari Driver Academy driver for Prema Racing earns the victory among female drivers and is the fastest overall among the drivers on track today at Imola in the Italian F.4 with a record top speed of 252.3 km/h.

Particularly noteworthy, among the many battles inflaming the track in the second race of the Italian F.4 Championship at the Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari in Imola, are the duels between Guido Luchetti (Airflow Racing) and Ismail Akhmed (Van Amersfoort Racing) and the long fight between Tina Hausmann (AKM Motorsport) and Nandavhud Bhirombhakdi (PHM Racing).

Tomorrow, Sunday, April 23, will be the turn of race 3 (C-A) starting at 10.00, then the last race of the weekend starting at 18.00. All races will last 25' + 1 lap and will be broadcast live with English commentary on the Italian F.4 Championship Youtube and Facebook pages and on Motorsport TV (https://eu.motorsport.tv/); also aired with Italian commentary on ACI Sport TV (sky channel 228), on www.acisport.it and on the Facebook page @acisporttv.

 

Ugo Ugochukwu: “unfortunately i lost the lead at the start, but I was able to do a good move around the outside, to take the lead back. From there on I was just pushing as much as I could to create a bit of a gap, then I just tried to manage and build the pace until the end. I’m super happy to get the first win of the season.”

Aurelia Nobels: “it was quite good, we had a good start and then there was a lot of car behind me. I was trying to keep focus on arriving on the others [in front], and I could resist the others [behind]. We finished P1 in the women and P11 overall, I think is a good result for my first race in the Italian Championship. I’m quite happy and we’ll work harder for the next one.”