At Italian F4’s first round of 2025, the paddock welcomed a brand-new team, Viola Formula Racing, while Technorace returned to the championship after a four-year hiatus. Feeder Series sat down with the teams’ highest-placed drivers, Ludovico Busso and Francesco Pio Coppola, and their team principals to talk about their debuts in Misano. 

By Francesca Brusa

With AKM Motorsport and BVM Racing waving goodbye to the Italian F4 paddock after the end of 2024, the championship had just enough room for two other squads to join the series in the first round of the 2025 season.

Technorace is no stranger to this crowd, having competed in Italian F4 in 2018 with Alessio Deledda and in 2020 with Pietro Delli Guanti. In the latter year, the team partnered with BVM Racing and claimed one win in Monza along the way.

Last year, the team started preparing for their return to the championship by taking part in the F4-spec FX Pro Series. 

“The comeback to the championship was already planned because we had already purchased the car last year,” Technorace team principal Alessandro Perullo told Feeder Series in the Misano paddock. “Then we saw the results of Francesco, who was almost ready to participate in this championship, so we decided to do a year in a test championship, Formula X, to prepare for Italian F4. We all know that it is basically an extreme level, super high.”

Viola Formula Racing, on the other hand, brought a breath of fresh air to the grid, having mainly competed in several Formula Junior and FRenault 2.0 championships over the past two decades. At Misano, they fielded three cars for Busso, Emir Tanju and Arthur Lorimier.

“We wanted to enter because it is a very sought-after championship,” founder and team principal Andrea Viola said. “It can be considered a world championship, absolutely.”

Italy’s F4 series is regarded as one of the most competitive entry-level single-seater championships worldwide. While Perullo said he aims to ‘improve every race until we get to the top 10’, Viola said his focus for his team was ‘to learn and try to achieve good results’.

Technorace’s Perullo said entering such a high-level championship was not necessarily difficult for a team with a good work ethic. For the drivers, however, the challenge comes when “they collide with reality and with drivers who have a project of getting to Formula 1, so they have certain staff and logistics on their side”.

Both Viola’s Busso and Technorace’s Coppola had already gained single-seater experience before entering their first weekend in Italian F4 at Misano. 

Busso made his F4 debut in the season-ending Barcelona round of the Formula Winter Series. He finished 14th overall twice, just missing the rookie podium in the last race.

“Here it’s a bit different, also because it’s so much warmer than it was in March and there are many more teams. The gaps are much shorter here. We’re all very close.”

The memory of the passage from karting to cars is still fresh in their minds. While Busso found the main difficulty to be “getting more used to the track, especially when cars apart from Formula 4 are competing”, Coppola said he struggled more with braking technique. 

“It is fundamental to rotate,” the Technorace driver added. “The better you do that, the faster you go, so for me that was the greatest difficulty.”

The two rookies achieved some impressive results throughout their first weekend in the championship. After starting from 16th place in race one, Coppola recovered to 11th, almost scoring points in his first official outing with the team. Busso, on the other hand, started 24th in that same race and made up nine positions to finish 15th. 

The two drivers’ paths crossed again in race three, in which the Viola driver recovered eight places to come 16th.

“We’ve had some difficulties here in qualifying because of other cars and we couldn’t find the right setup to fit in straight away,” Busso said. “But I managed to make up nine positions in the first race and eight in the second one.”

Speaking before the final race, Busso said he hoped to “regain the most places possible and to gather even more data for the next race”.

Coppola said that Saturday’s qualifying and race ‘went quite well’.

“I wish I managed the tyres a bit better, but in the end I did some good overtakes where it wasn’t easy to,” he said. “In my opinion, we got the qualifying wrong. I was doing good sectors every other lap without putting them together. A bad qualifying really puts you on the back foot for all the races.”

Coppola started 15th for race three, but a problem at the start meant he dropped to the rear of the field. He ultimately finished 17th after two drivers ahead received penalties.

“Instead of starting in first gear I started in neutral, so I stood still,” he explained. “But from 27th, 28th, I climbed the order up to 19th with some good overtakes. 

“Let’s say it’s a pity because the pace was faster than yesterday. We could’ve been in the top 10 and qualified in a better position for the final.”

In the final race, both racers gained positions at the start, but as Busso kept climbing up the order from 28th and finished 19th, Coppola pitted on the fourth lap of the race and only recovered to 33rd place after starting 19th. 

Busso’s and Coppola’s debuts featured highs and lows, but what do they think they can achieve in their respective first campaigns in Italian F4?

“My hope is to always grow faster and closer to the top,” the Viola Formula Racing driver told Feeder Series. “It’s fine considering we are working together and exploring together with the team since it’s also their first time in Formula 4.”

“I’m sure we’ll do some great things with the team,” Coppola said. “I hope to win some races – to be honest, to win the championship.”

Header photo credit: Alex Galli