In the Euro 4 Championship's first qualifying session at Mugello Circuit, Kacper Sztuka of US Racing emerged as the pole sitter for the inaugural race of the series. In the remaining two races, it will be Prema Racing drivers who start from P1: Arvid Lindblad on pole for Race 2, and James Wharton on the most advanced spot of the grid in the last race of the weekend. 

In the very first Euro 4 Championship qualifying session, Kacper Sztuka emerged victorious. The Polish driver secured the top spot with a time of 1'48.123. Just 0.037 behind him was his Singaporean teammate, Akshay Bohra. However, the qualifying session was interrupted due to gravel on the Tuscan track caused by Diego La Torre's car spin (AKM Motorsport), requiring track cleanup. The session resumed with only 2 minutes and 23 seconds remaining. With limited time to return to the track from the pit lane and complete a flying lap, the order at the top remained unchanged. Ugo Ugochukwu, the McLaren junior driver from Prema Racing, claimed third place with a gap of 0.208. Following closely in fourth was Australian Ferrari Driver Academy James Wharton, and fifth place went to Arvid Lindblad, Prema Red Bull Junior driver, with a gap of 0.443. Finnish Prema Racing Ferrari Driver Academy, Tuukka Taponen, finished sixth with a gap of 0.455. In the first qualifying session, a duo of US Racing drivers led the way, followed by five drivers from the Vicenza-based team. David Zachary secured the eighth position with a gap of 0.677, followed closely by Rashid Al Dhaheri at 0.684, continuing to represent the rivalry between US Racing and Prema Racing, who shared the front rows of the grid for Race 1. Rounding out the top 10 was Venetian driver Brando Badoer, representing Van Amersfoort Racing, with a gap of 0.760.

 

After a brief pit lane break, the second qualifying session started. James Wharton initially started to lower the time reference, but it was his teammate Arvid Lindblad who secured pole position for Race 2 with the fastest lap time of 1'47.740. Ugo Ugochukwu claimed P2 with a gap of 0.110, followed by Wharton at 0.141. This time, the trio of Prema drivers took the top positions, followed by a trio from the German team: Bohra in fourth place with a gap of 0.220, followed by Sztuka at 0.289, and Maltese-Filipino driver David at 0.297. Lacorte finished seventh with a gap of 0.570, closely followed by Al Dhaheri at 0.580. Badoer took P9, while Australian Gianmarco Pradel from US Racing completed the top 10 in the second qualifying session, finishing with a lap time 0.654 seconds behind Lindblad.

With the second fastest lap time of 1'47.943, James Wharton secured pole position for Race 3. Ugochukwu followed closely in second place, trailing by only 0.075 seconds. Lindblad took third place on the starting grid for Race 3, with a gap of 0.142, followed by David on the second row of the final race of the weekend, with a gap of 0.201.

Kacper Sztuka: “it’s really great news to be on pole. For sure we will try to do our best tomorrow and win the first race. Good job from the Team in Q1, we put the lap together, I’m just happy to be on pole. With my Team I think we have good chances to fight for wins.” 

Arvid Lindblad: “Not very good Q1, we need to look into it, we were quite slow in Q1. Then we made a few changes, and I woke up a little bit for Q2 and did a good lap. I have still a bit of margin, I’m not too happy with myself, because I feel I could have done a better job. Regardless, still pole, is good. In the end we are in the top for all 3 races, I’m super grateful to all the Team, my engineer Vincenzo, mechanics Mauro and Laura. They have done a phenomenal job to help me.” 

James Wharton: “New Championship, time to trying and get to the front, a little bit earlier this time.  It’s a new beginning, I hope that I can get another Championship by the end of the year. It was quite difficult, because the track has changed quite a lot over the day. FP1 was quite cold in the morning, then FP2 was super-hot. The track has evolved every session, every lap is changing, so you have to adapt every lap to get the best out of it.”

The three races of the weekend will be broadcast live with English commentary on the Youtube and Facebook pages of the Italian F.4 Championship| Euro 4 Championship; while they will be aired with Italian commentary on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228), on www.acisport.it and on the Facebook page @acisporttv. In addition, broadcast in both languages, Italian and English, will be available on Motorsport tv (https://motorsport.tv/)