Freddie Slater completes the sweep at Vallelunga: 3 out of 3
Replicated the Podium of Race-2, Alex Powell Second and Hiyu Yamakoshi Third
Vallelunga - Freddie Slater completed his sweep at Vallelunga by winning all three races of the third round of the Italian F.4 Championship. In the last race of the weekend, the British driver from Prema Racing started from P2 and took the lead by the end of the straight. From there, he resisted Alex Powell's attempts to reclaim the first position, maintaining a firm grip on the lead until the end, even handling multiple restarts behind the Safety Car without issues. Slater thus tightens his grip on the championship, replicating the perfect success he achieved in the inaugural round at Misano. With seven wins overall, his total score now rises to 165, a 38-point lead over the nearest chaser (Hiyu Yamakoshi with 127 points). Alex Powell, the Mercedes junior driver from Prema Racing, after suffering a front wing break in Race-1 during a battle, returned to the podium. The Jamaican took home his second P2 of the weekend, the fifth this year, which places him third in the drivers' standings with 102 points. Powell, still in pursuit of his first victory in the Championship promoted by ACI Sport and WSK Promotion, has thus overtaken Akshay Bohra in the drivers' standings after the third round.
It's another third-place finish for Hiyu Yamakoshi, the Japanese driver from Van Amersfoort Racing who monopolized the third step of the podium all weekend. With 45 points earned at Vallelunga, Yamakoshi was the second most successful driver of the weekend, reaffirming his status as Slater's main challenger. In Race-3, he attempted to dislodge Powell with multiple attacks, particularly in the first lap, but without success.
Fourth position in Race-3 was claimed by Matheus Ferreira, who, consistently finishing fifth in the first two races of the weekend, seems to have found his stride at Vallelunga for a turning point in his season. P5 went to Jack Beeton, who had a mixed weekend of results, achieving his first pole position in the series and a P2 in Race-1, followed by a second race without points. In the race, Beeton and his teammates behind him thrilled the crowd with an intense battle among the US Racing Team members. Akshay Bohra finished the weekend with P6 after being seventh in the two previous races, thus moving to fourth in the drivers' standings with 93 points overall. Seventh in Race-3 was Australian Gianmarco Pradel, followed at the finish line by Prema Racing's Alpine Academy driver, Kean Nakamura Berta. The result earned the Japanese driver the second place on the Rookie podium, second in class behind Alex Powell. Rashid Al Dhaheri, the Emirati driver from Prema Racing, finished the final race in ninth place, thanks to an overtake on Gustav Jonsson before the last neutralization. The Swedish driver from Van Amersfoort Racing thus secured the last available point. Completing the Rookie podium was Tomass Stolcermanis from Prema Racing, who, thanks to a favorable performance this weekend, leads the standings for debutant F4 drivers ahead of Alex Powell.
Several drivers encountered difficulties. Among them was the fast Finnish driver Luka Sammalisto from R-ace GP, who damaged his car on a kerb and dropped out of the fight for points. The Dutch driver from Van Amersfoort Racing, Hodenius Lin, and the Italian driver from AKM Motorsport, Emanuele Olivieri, retired after a crash that ended their race in the gravel outside Roma corner on the second lap. There was also an incident between US Racing's Alpine Academy driver Kabir Anurag and PHM AIX Racing's American driver Everett Stack, while Swiss driver Nathaniel Berreby from Maffi Racing retired on the eleventh lap. Finally, Ethan Ischer stopped behind the Safety Car with damage to the right front suspension. The race thus ended with a neutralized classification.
Freddie Slater: “I’m trying to do the best I can every weekend. If I made mistakes, I made mistakes; if I win, I win. The Championship si what it is, you just come here to do the job, to get as many points as you can. We are taking the biggest risk and we are taking the biggest reward, but in a controlled way. That’s what we did this weekend, we have done a good job. The Team gave me a mega car. This has been an eventful one, but I’m sure we will keep pushing for the rest of the season.”
Alex Powell: “I think we are going to have quite an extensive preparation for the next round at Mugello, as is getting closer to the mid part of the Championship. That’s where things start to get more crucial, and that’s where we really have to be on top of the game. I think we have had a successful weekend here in Vallelunga, but there is still something that we need to improve to get the win. Overall, I’m quite happy with today. I think we did 2 really good races, and collectively we worked well as a Team. We are missing a little something, that I need to find from myself and from the people around me, we are just going to make sure that the prep is really intense and extensive going into the next round. We have some time before that, to be on top of things at Mugello in one month's time.”
Hiyu Yamakoshi: “The consistency is very good for the Championship, so this is a very nice race weekend. The first lap was quite ok I think, I just tried to overtake Powell.”
Next stop: Mugello Circuit, July 12-14