Everything is ready at the Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari in Imola to welcome the 37 cars that will take to the track for the first event of the Italian F.4 Championship certified by FIA 2023 season, the single-seater series promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion. Another year, the one at the start for the Championship that has managed to impose itself as a reference in the international scene, welcomed with great favor, as shown by the very large international participation that exceeds 20 nationalities and touches 4 continents.

An absolute quality pool of starters right from the very first appointment, with the reigning Champion Team, PREMA Racing, which shows every intention of defending its title. In fact, there are 7 cars from the team headed by Angelo Rosin at Imola, with the junior McLaren driver, Ugo Ugochukwu, from the United States, who had already been able to impress in his appearances in the series last year.  Then several Ferrari juniors will be with the Vicenza-based team: Finnish Tuukka Taponen and Belgian driver Aurelia Nobels, both at their first in the competitive Italian F4 series; then, again under the Ferrari Driver Academy banner, James Wharton. The Australian had already shown during the course of last season that he had a great hunger for victory and all the credentials to achieve the goal. Also on the team is Red Bull junior driver Arvid Lindblad.Making his debut in the team's red and white Tatuus will then be rookie Rashid Al Dhaheri, one of the cadets of the ACI Sport Federal School who took part in the 2022 Supercorso. Finally, alongside him will be Nicola Lacorte who, after making his debut last year, had in turn taken part in the ACI Sport 2022 Federal Supercorso and came out the winner.

The clear will to defend the title on the part of the Italian Team, will certainly not be made easy by the competition. In fact, the Dutch Team Van Amersfoort Racing in turn brings to the track a quintet of high quality drivers, composed of Brazilian Matheus Ferreira, flanked by the Brando Badoer - son of Luca Badoer - and Akhmed Ismail, both already accustomed to the challenges of the Italian series, with a year of valuable experience behind them to rely on. For the team led by Frits Van Amersfoort there will also be Portuguese Ivan Domingues and Australian Jack Beeton.

5 cars also for the German Team US Racing led by Ralf Schumacher and Gerhard Ungar, which fields the experienced Polish driver Kacper Sztuka, accompanied by 4 rookies: the Australian Gianmarco Pradel, then Zachary David, the Singaporean driver Akshay Bohra and the Chinese Ruiqi Liu.

Poker, on the other hand, for Marco Antonelli, Team Principal of AKM Motorsport, who lines up a quartet of very young rookies with the intention of accumulating kilometers and experience, but without excluding surprises with the debut of Davide Larini, son of Nicola Larini, already very fast in single-seater tests; Swiss Tina Hausmann, Frenchman Enzo Deligny and Australian Griffin Peebles.

There will also be four PHM Racing drivers, with Valentin Kluss, Thailand's Nandavhud Bhirombhakdi, driver Victoria Blokhina and James Egozi, himself making his debut in the series following preparation with the ACI Sport Federal School at the last Supercorso.

There will be then three R-ace GP cars, with Raphael Narac, Matteo Quintarelli and rookie Matteo De Palo. A fourth car with Singaporean driver Kabir Anurag will take to the track at the Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari in Imola, but only during the long Thursday test sessions.

Three also for Andreas Jenzer, with Jenzer Motorsport bringing to the starting blocks Korean Kim Hwarang, Swiss Ethan Ischer and, as debutant, Israeli driver Ariel Elkin will take to the track.

There will also be a trio for BVM Racing, which will start with Italian drivers Alfio Spina and Andrea Frassineti and Mexican Jesse Carrasquedo.

On the other hand, it will be a duo that of Slovenian Team AS Motorsport, with Finn Wiebelhaus and Manuel Quondamcarlo; while Guido Luchetti, Italian driver and flag bearer of Airflow Racing, will run as the sole representative of his team.

 

The weekend schedule:

Round 1 opens on Thursday, with 50-minute on-track test sessions for drivers divided into three groups. The sessions will be at the start from 9.00.

Friday free practice in two 40-minute sessions, starting at 9.00 and 12:55. Then it will be the turn of official practice with the drivers divided into 2 series, the first series will take to the track from 17:30 to 17:50; the second series will follow from 18.00 to 18:20.

From Saturday the races will be at the start, in the new format introduced last year that includes four races in total with the drivers divided into groups (A,B,C.). Race 1 (B-C) will be at the start at 11:55, followed by race 2 (A-B) at 18:20. Sunday 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 broadcasted live with English commentary on the Youtube and Facebook pages of the Italian F.4 Championship; also aired with Italian commentary on ACI Sport TV (sky channel 228), on www.acisport.it and on the Facebook page @acisporttv.

Access to the public is free of charge and allowed in the Grandstand 1 (Ex A) and Grandstand 3 (Ex I), which will be open on April 21, 22 and 23. The paddock will be closed to the public.