This morning, the first free practice session of the Euro 4 Championship at Mugello Circuit concluded, marking the initial opportunity for Teams and drivers to finalize their preparations ahead of the qualifying session later today. In this maiden contact with the track for the new series promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion, it was Polish driver Kacper Sztuka from US Racing who set the reference lap time. Sztuka excelled on the track this morning, posting a time of 1'48.8, which he then improved in subsequent laps to reach 1'48.698. With his best lap, Sztuka was the only one among the 26 drivers on track to remain below the 1'49 mark. Second in the first practice session was his teammate from the Team led by Ralf Schumacher and Gerhard Ungar, Singaporean driver Akshay Bohra, trailing by 0.384 seconds. Just two-thousandths of a second behind Bohra, in third place, was Ugo Ugochukwu, the American driver from PREMA Racing and a McLaren junior driver, with a gap of 0.384. Another US Racing driver topped the first practice classification, with David Zachary posting the fourth best lap time at 0.399. Italian driver Brando Badoer from Van Amersfoort Racing followed then in fifth place, with a gap of 0.487 from the session leader. Sixth and seventh places this morning went to two Ferrari Driver Academy drivers, both representing Prema Racing: Finnish driver Tuukka Taponen and Australian driver James Wharton, with gaps of 0.527 and 0.579, respectively. Eighth was French driver Raphael Narac from R-ace GP, with a gap of 0.582, followed by Thai driver Nandavhud Bhirombhakdi from PHM Racing at 0.619. Closing out the top 10 in the first practice session was Chinese driver Ruiqi Liu from US Racing, with a lap time gap of 0.738.

 

The weekend's schedule includes another 40-minute session starting today, Friday, July 7, at 13:25. Later in the evening, qualifying sessions will take place in two 15-minute sessions, on track from 18:50 to 19:05, and again from 19:15 to 19:30. Race 1 will take place on Saturday, July 8, starting at 14:50 for 30 minutes plus 1 lap. On Sunday, July 10, the drivers will return to the track at 11:20 (30' + 1 lap), followed by another race at 18:15 (30' + 1 lap) to conclude the first round of the Euro 4 Championship.

 

The three races of the weekend will be broadcast live with English commentary on the Italian F.4 Championship's YouTube and Facebook pages, while they will be aired with Italian commentary on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228), www.acisport.it, and the Facebook page @acisporttv, and, both with English and Italian commentary, on Motorsport TV (https://motorsport.tv/).