Jack Beeton set the fastest time in the first qualifying, but a penalty from the previous round brought him back to third place
The Tatuus cars of the Italian F.4 Championship opened the program of the Spanish weekend, hitting the track with qualifying in the first session of the morning. On a fresh track, with the track temperature at 15.5°C, 32 drivers sped through, aiming to gain the best possible advantage for the weekend's races. At the end of the battle against the clock, the pole sitters of the Spanish weekend were Akshay Bohra of US Racing for Race 1 and Freddie Slater of Prema Racing for the remaining two races of the weekend. Bohra inherited the position from his teammate Jack Beeton, who was the fastest on track in Qualifying 1. However, the Australian carries a two-position grid penalty from Round 5 at Paul Ricard, where, in a tricky Race 3 with a quickly drying track after rain, he was involved in an unfortunate incident with his teammate Matheus Ferreira.
The first of the two 15-minute sessions this morning, due to the low tire and track temperatures, took some time to heat up, with lap times improving only in the second half. Among the early leaders was Emanuele Olivieri, an Italian driver for AKM Motorsport, who continued to improve his lap time. Freddie Slater then further lowered the time. Maxim Rehm, the German driver from US Racing, later took his turn at the top of the standings. Then it was the Australian Jack Beeton's turn to set the best lap time, which he further improved at the checkered flag. His final lap was a 1'41.347. Right at the flag, Akshay Bohra set his best time, just 0.105 behind his teammate, securing him pole position for the weekend's first race, after Beeton’s grid penalty relegated him to third. Freddie Slater posted the third fastest lap of the first session, with a gap of 0.191. Fourth place went to US Racing’s Alpine Academy driver Kabir Anurag, who had an excellent session, finishing 0.378 off the leader. Fifth and sixth places went to two Japanese flag-bearers: Prema Racing’s Alpine Academy driver Kean Nakamura-Berta, 0.389 behind, and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi, 0.457 behind, respectively. Maxim Rehm finished the session in seventh place, 0.486 seconds behind. Eighth place went to Van Amersfoort Racing's Swedish driver Gustav Jonsson, 0.499 behind, followed in ninth by Prema Racing’s junior Mercedes driver Alex Powell, 0.571 behind. Rounding out the top 10 was another Prema Racing driver, Indian racer Dion Gowda, 0.593 behind.
After a 10-minute pitlane break, the drivers returned to the Catalan track for another 15-minute session, this time to set the grid for Race 2.
This time, among the first to lower their lap times were US Racing drivers Maxim Rehm and Edward Robinson. Then Freddie Slater took the lead, kicking off an exciting battle down to the thousandths of a second with Jack Beeton. The Australian initially took the lead with a 23-thousandths advantage, but the driver from Stratford-upon-Avon quickly regained the lead, ending the session with a 1'40.800, just 6-thousandths ahead of Beeton, who will start second on the Race 2 grid. In a tightly contested qualifying, with all the top 5 drivers within a tenth of a second, the third place went to Hiyu Yamakoshi, just 0.045 behind the leader. He was followed by Kean Nakamura-Berta, with a margin of 0.057. Akshay Bohra finished fifth, with his best lap 0.091 behind. Sixth place went to Gianmarco Pradel, 0.275 behind, followed by Gustav Jonsson, 0.283 behind. Edward Robinson, the British-Spanish driver for US Racing, set the eighth fastest lap of the second qualifying session, 0.299 behind. Rounding out the top 10 were US Racing drivers Maxim Rehm, 0.376 behind, and Kabir Anurag, 0.440 behind.
In Race 3, the pole position will again be occupied by Freddie Slater in car #27, with his second-best lap from the second session being 1'40.829. Jack Beeton will start in second place, just 50-thousandths behind, followed by Akshay Bohra, 0.159 behind. Fourth place will go to Hiyu Yamakoshi, with a recorded gap of 0.165, while fifth will be Kean Nakamura-Berta, with his second-best lap completed with a margin of 0.182. Sixth is Gianmarco Pradel, 0.324 behind, followed by Edward Robinson, 0.391 behind Freddie Slater. Eighth is Maxim Rehm, 0.453 behind, followed by Gustav Jonsson, 0.484 behind. Completing the top 10 for the Race 3 starting order is Finnish driver Luka Sammalisto of R-ace GP, thanks to his best lap, 0.541 seconds off the benchmark set by the British driver.
Now begins the anticipation for the first battle of the weekend, with 32 cars ready to line up for the start on the straight leading into the crucial Turn 1 of the Catalan circuit. The start of Race 1 is scheduled for today, Saturday, September 28, at 12:40.
Race 2 and Race 3 will take place tomorrow, Sunday, September 29, at 11:10 and 17:10, respectively. The three races of the weekend, each lasting 30 minutes plus 1 lap, will be broadcast live on the Italian F.4 Championship’s YouTube and Facebook channels, on ACI Sport TV (channel 228 on Sky, channel 52 on Tivù Sat, and streaming on www.acisport.it), as well as on the various channels and platforms of the Italian F.4 Championship’s extensive international network, including DAZN.
Jack Beeton: “I’m not starting pole with the grid penalty from Paul Ricard, but it’s good to see that I’m fastest, obviously for confidence it means a lot. We struggled a few weekends ago in Euro 4 in Red Bull Ring, so it’s good to be back at the front now, where I think we belong. I’m really happy to be fast again, and excited to see what we can do in the races. I’m going to try to get as good of a start as I can, trying to get my first win of the season. We will see what we can do, P3 is not a bad place to start anyway.”
Akshay Bohra: “It’s always a good feeling to be on pole. In Q1 we almost did everything right, I think from my side maybe small things I could have improved. Q2, I’d say slightly misfortune with track positioning. I thought I had good position, but then with other drivers on different run plans, didn’t work in our favor. I think, nonetheless, we did pretty close to maximum, I just have to thank the team for all their effort. Now full focus on the race. Starting on pole it’s the best place you could start here, but still it’s a really long run into T1. Realistically, if you are somewhere top 5, top 3, it’s everyone chance to be leading coming out of T3, with the whole chicane. I’m just going to keep my head down, and take it step by step.”
Freddie Slater: “It’s a great start of the weekend, at the end of the day I’m just trying to do the best that I can. I come through each weekend just trying to score as many points as possible, I give myself the best opportunity to do that. We have done a good job. Prema gave me a great car. The track conditions were completely different yesterday, the morning conditions were something new to everybody, fair play to Prema for give me that car in that conditions and get it sorted. We are going to build on it for the race. It’s super close out there, every little hundredth makes a difference, you look between the top 5, if you find couple of hundredths you are up a few positions. It’s super crucial to be on pole.”