The summer break is coming to an end for the young drivers of the Italian F.4 Championship, once again called to compete on the track for the final part of the ACI Sport single-seater championship promoted by WSK Promotion.
The Italian F.4 Championship certified by FIA re-starts the weekend of September 11th, at the GT Open event that will also host the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine in a weekend of motorsport that promises a high-level spectacle.
In Austria Andrea Kimi Antonelli, ace driver of the PREMA Racing team and Junior Mercedes driver will be the leader after having conquered the first position in the very last round before the break. The driver from Bologna had won the lead over his Brazilian teammate Rafael Camara, gaining the upper hand after a long internal duel. Camara, Ferrari Driver Academy, had resisted strenuously defending the lead, but paid the price for a puncture that eliminated him from one of the three races. The duel at the top is also repeated in the Rookie rankings, of which both drivers from the Vicenza-based team led by Angelo Rosin are part.
Third overall is Alexander Dunne, the Irishman from US Racing, who had been the first to impose himself at the head of the Championship after the start of the season at Imola, then suffered more in maintaining the pace on the attacks of his rivals, finding himself behind in the following rounds, also facing some misfortunes. However, Dunne managed to keep himself very steadily into the points zone, gaining a podium again in the third round of the Championship at Spa Francorchamps. The drivers of Ralf Schumacher and Gerhard Ungar's team (Dunne, Kacper Sztuka, Marcus Amand, Nikhil Bohra, and Pedro Perino), who on several occasions have halted the dominance of PREMA drivers, will see their ranks rise. Indeed, the announcement of driver Zachary David, a 15-year-old with a rich karting background who races under the Malta and Philippine flags, came during the summer from the Kerpen-based team.
More entries in the series then, which continues to grow, increasingly imposing itself as a reference in the Formula 4 category worldwide, in an extremely positive trend that sees the number of the second-generation Tatuus on the grid grow higher from round to round. A new record of entries is in fact expected at the Austrian track, with the current schedule foreseeing a 4-race format, 3 qualifying races held in two groups, and a fourth reserved only for drivers who accumulate the most points (details are available in the Sporting Regulations under "5.1 RACE FORMAT OVER CAPACITY" https://www.acisport.it/public_federazione/2022/pdf/Annuario/2022_if4c_regolamento_sportivo.pdf)
Eyes are also on the Rookie, a class reserved for drivers at their first experience in the category, where the revelation is Martinius Stenshorne, Norwegian driver from Van Amersfoort Racing, who took P5 behind PREMA drivers Antonelli, Camara, Anthony James Wharton and Charlie Wurz in a strenuous fight aiming for the podium at the end of the season. The 16-year-old driver from Frits Van Amersfoort's team managed to gain points during all rounds of the 2022 season. Then, sixth among the Rookies, Iron Lynx's Portuguese driver Ivan Domingues, is himself as well a regular points-winner in the overall rankings. Domingues too made an excellent debut in his first season in Italian F.4, with interesting exploits that showed great speed, leading him to win a pole position.
In the Woman rakings, the iron lady Maya Weug (Iron Dames), the first female driver in the Ferrari Driver Academy program, took advantage of her greater experience to best her class rival, Victoria Blokhina (PHM Racing), a Rookie driver who seems to get better and better at each round. The Dutch-Belgian-Spanish driver has brought home several useful results that earned her P12 in the overall rankings; while Blokhina has shown remarkable growth during the 2022 season, bringing home her first points even in the Rookie class at Vallelunga, before the summer break, getting her best result with a double P17 in race 2 and race 3, as the culmination of an exciting performance.
Several are therefore the clashes, head-to-head and unknowns still to be solved during the next 3 rounds that will bring the season to an end, with new entries that may further add extra uncertainties: the only certainty is that the spectacle will not fail to excite on the Red Bull Ring track (9-11/09).
Photo credit: Actualfoto
