Akshay Bohra put on an outstanding performance, securing double pole positions for Race 1 and Race 2 in Spain, at the final round of the Euro 4 Championship. In the final race, American driver Ugo Ugochukwu will start from P1, closing out the 2023 Formula 4 season in a pivotal double-point showdown. 

In Barcelona, the Euro 4 Championship drivers took on the task of setting the pace with the morning's first qualifying session. There were no hesitations on the track, and Qualifying 1 quickly delivered excitement. Fast laps were exchanged rapidly from the get-go, with Prema Racing's Freddie Slater among the frontrunners. The top positions saw several changes, with Prema Racing's Ferrari Driver Academy drivers James Wharton and Tuukka Taponen trading places, with also Akshay Bohra of US Racing getting into the mix. At the checkered flag, it was the American-Singaporean driver who clinched the best lap with a time of 1’41.129, preceding Wharton by a mere 0.036 seconds. Taponen secured the third position with a gap of 0.115 seconds. Ugo Ugochukwu, Prema Racing's McLaren junior driver, finished in fourth place, earning a spot on the second row with a gap of 0.314 seconds. Arvid Lindblad, Prema's Red Bull junior driver, who leads the driver standings in the Euro 4 Championship, secured the fifth position with a gap of 0.458 seconds. The first qualifying session concluded with Gianmarco Pradel, the Australian driver from US Racing, in sixth place, trailing Bohra by 0.482 seconds. Slater, who set the benchmark earlier, finished seventh with a gap of 0.540 seconds. Brando Badoer from Van Amersfoort Racing claimed the eighth position, trailing by 0.553 seconds. Emirati driver Rashid Al Dhaheri from Prema Racing finished ninth, starting from the fifth row with the best lap recorded at 0.562 seconds. There were then problems for Nicola Lacorte, one of the few representatives of Italy in the Euro 4 Championship, racing for Team Prema Racing, as all his times in Qualifying 1 were invalidated due to crossing the finish line twice after the checkered. This pushed the Maltese-Filipino driver from US Racing, Zachary David, into the tenth position, with a gap of 0.633 seconds. 

The second qualifying session took a bit longer to heat up but was not short on excitement. Brando Badoer was the first driver to launch for a flying lap, and later on, he was the first driver this weekend to break the 1’41 barrier. Several drivers managed to match his feat, with the final standings seeing Bohra accelerate to secure the second pole position with a lap time of 1’40.596. Once again, James Wharton started beside him, this time with an incredibly narrow margin of only 0.028 seconds. Ugochukwu was very close in qualifying as well, finishing third with a gap of 0.046 seconds. Taponen secured the fourth position, trailing by 0.139 seconds, with Lindblad ready to start from P5 thanks to a gap of 0.196 seconds. Badoer closed in sixth at 0.198 seconds. In the second qualifying session, Nicola Lacorte followed, with a gap of 0.342 seconds. Freddie Slater claimed the eighth position, trailing the best lap by 0.463 seconds. Rounding off the top 10 were two US Racing drivers, Australian Pradel at 0.553 seconds, followed by Chinese driver Ruiqi Liu at 0.573 seconds.

 

The pole position for Race 3, determined by the second-best time set by the drivers in the two sessions, went to Ugo Ugochukwu, with 1’40.732 on the stopwatch. Starting from the front in the final race of the Euro 4 Championship is Brando Badoer, with a gap of 0.157 seconds. Two Prema drivers, Lindblad (with a gap of 0.220) and Taponen (with a margin of 0.226), will line up on the second row. Wharton (with a gap of 0.263) and the previous two-time poleman Bohra (trailing by 0.395 seconds) will start from the third row.

Today, Saturday, October 21st, marks the first race of the weekend, a 30-minute + 1 lap event scheduled to start at 12:40. On Sunday, October 22nd, Race 2 will begin at 11:20 (30 minutes + 1 lap), followed by the race that will close the standings for the first edition of the Euro 4 Championship, Race 3 (30 minutes + 1 lap), starting at 16:30.

The three races of the weekend will be broadcast live with English commentary on the Euro 4 Championship's YouTube and Facebook pages and on Motorsport TV (https://eu.motorsport.tv/); with Italian commentary on ACI Sport TV (Sky channel 228 and 52 Tivùsat), on www.acisport.it, and on the Facebook page @acisporttv.

 

Akshay Bohra: “It’s a nice way to start this weekend. First pole this year in F.4, and we managed to get two of them! Is definitely a good feeling. I’m just gonna focus on the process, we are not really thinking on the Championship. We have to take it quali by quali, race by race. So now eyes on Race 1! We are going to take it each step of the way, the start, lap 1, lap 2, lap 3… and we see where that ends for us. I have to give US Racing a big thanks, they are such a great Team. The performance of the car is just so unreal, and even that, is not even a comparison to the environment we have, everyone is a family. I’m really happy that I shared this whole year with them.” 

Ugo Ugochukwu: “Overall it was quite a tricky quali, in cold conditions. It was quite difficult to get the tire temperature. In Q2 I knew the second fast lap was going to be important. I managed to pop in a really good lap at the end there. I’m really happy to start in pole Race 3, hopefully we can keep the lead and take those 50 points on.”