Barcelona welcomed the sixth and penultimate round of this year’s Italian F4 season after the series took a two month break. Freddie Slater and Prema Racing were crowned champions, while US Racing consoled itself with a 1-2 finish at the end of the weekend. 

By Francesca Brusa

Slater crowned champion in race two

Entering the weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Prema Racing’s Freddie Slater knew that he had a job to do. The Briton returned to the series after the summer break with 11 wins out of 15 races weighing on his shoulders.

After topping the timesheet at the end of free practice one and finishing the second session in fourth place, Slater secured a front row start in race one and bagged pole position for race two and three. Both of his direct competitors in the first two races, Akshay Bohra and Jack Beeton respectively, stalled at the start, allowing the Prema driver to triumph two times in a row.

50 points were just enough for the Englishman to be crowned champion with four races to go in the campaign. The title was the cherry on top of a season that Slater, unmatched and unchallenged, dominated since the first round in Misano. 

Luck took a wrong turn for the newly crowned youngster in race three, when a lack of pace saw the Prema driver take the chequered flag in fourth place.

A long awaited first win for Beeton

Often on the sidelines, Jack Beeton has been silently collecting seven second-place finishes in this year’s Italian F4 campaign. Before the racing weekend in Barcelona, he was the only driver in the top four yet to win a race. 

Despite being fastest in the first qualifying session, the Australian couldn’t sprint from the first spot on the grid due to a penalty inherited from race three at Paul Ricard. He had to settle for the second row, but still managed to bag second place in race one.

The US Racing driver couldn’t even benefit from a second-place start at the beginning of race two, since his car stalled as the lights went out.

Beeton finally redeemed himself in the last race of the weekend, taking victory in race three and leading teammate Gianmarco Pradel in a 1-2 finish for the German outfit.

With this success, the Australian officially signed his name in the hall of fame of Italian F4 race winners.

Prema Racing are the 2024 Italian F4 teams’ champions

After race two, not only did Prema Racing celebrate the championship win of one of their drivers, Freddie Slater, but they also brought home the team title. For the third year in a row, the Italian outfit established itself as a dominant force in the series, being the only team to score a minimum of 20 points in each race they’ve taken part in.

This result was achieved through a set of forces, characterised by a strong and balanced lineup. Alongside champion Slater and the more experienced Dion Gowda and Rashid Al Dhaheri, a central role in the haul for points was played by the rookies of the Grisignano di Zocco-based squad. 

Alex Powell, Kean Nakamura-Berta and Tomass Štolcermanis – respectively fifth, sixth and eighth in the overall standings – will be fighting one another in Monza for the rookie title, after having dominated their category and having missed out on the rookie win only once.

Yamakoshi and Bohra’s impressive attempts

Overshadowed by Slater’s dominance were two strong and consistent performances by championship runner-up Hiyu Yamakoshi and third-placed US Racing’s Akshay Bohra.

While the Indian-American driver started on pole position for race one, he stalled at the start and was consequently forced to retire from the competition. Van Amersfoort Racing’s Yamakoshi, on the other hand, brought home a top-3 finish after starting sixth on the grid as the lights went out. 

Race two saw the recurrence of the championship’s best three on the steps of the podium. Despite never really being able to complete an overtake, the Japanese driver was always close to the championship leader, taking advantage of a mechanical problem that forced Beeton to miss his start from the front row. Yamakoshi also took the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1:42.411.

As far as Bohra is concerned, he too was putting pressure on the Van Amersfoort Racing car in front of him, but was forced to let go towards the last part of the race and took the chequered flag with a gap of 1.423 seconds. 

The newly crowned champion lacked pace in the last race of the weekend. However, it was not his two direct competitors who took the opportunity to shine. After experiencing an issue in the early stages of the race, the Indian-American racer was forced to retire the car. The championship’s runner-up, in the meantime, was battling wheel-to-wheel with Štolcermanis for fifth position, but the rookie from Latvia had the upper hand. 

The winning trophy might have already been lifted, but Yamakoshi and Bohra will enter the Monza round with 220 and 189 points each and a second-place championship finish to win.

The Italian F4 Championship will be back for its season finale, alongside FR Europe, at The Temple of Speed from 25-27 October. 

Header photo credit: Paolo Pellegrini