The first appointment of the 2024 season of the Italian F.4 Championship is immediately thrilling, with the prelude day of the weekend featuring two 2-hour collective test sessions. The first, starting this morning, Thursday, May 2, saw PREMA Racing's driver Alex Powell shine. The American-Jamaican, Mercedes Junior Driver, set the fastest lap with 1'34.821. Following him was his British teammate Freddie Slater, with a gap of 0.228. The third fastest lap, with a gap of 0.279, was set by Italian driver Emanuele Olivieri of AKM Motorsport, who is competing in his first race weekend of the year after participating and winning the prestigious Supercorso of the ACI Sport Federal School this winter. Following him on track was Prema Racing's Latvian driver Tomass Stolcermanis, who also participated in the 2023 edition of the Federal Supercorso, where he took home the Cristiano Del Balzo Trophy. Stolcermanis trailed by 0.509.

Fifth in the first testing session was Kean Nakamura Berta, a Japanese driver for Prema Racing, with a time of 0.517. Sixth place went to Akshay Bohra, an American from US Racing, with a time of 0.534, followed by Rashid Al Dhaheri, an Emirati driver for Prema Racing, with a gap of 0.573.

Eighth fastest time was set by Reno Francot, a Dutch driver for Jenzer Motorsport, with a time of 0.627, followed by Hiyu Yamakoshi, a Japanese driver for Van Amersfoort Racing, at 0.645. Yamakoshi, who held the fastest lap for much of the latter part of the session, then finished ninth, ahead of Enzo Yeh, a Chinese driver for R-ace GP, who rounded off the top 10 with a time of 0.666.

 

Another two-hour session will start today at 14:15, with the 37 protagonists of the first round returning to the track, albeit under different conditions. This morning, the track was dry, while it will be wet in the afternoon, as rain started to fall shortly after the end of the first collective test.